Shepherd of the Stars
by joestej
Summary: When Humanity ventured into the stars, they found they were not alone. And they were not liked. So they learned. How to build bigger, stronger ships. More powerful weapons. In order to survive, they learned to wield the Sword of the Stars. But there was one lesson they hadn't learned. It was called the Mass Effect.
1. The Great Catalyst (Codex)

**The Great Catalyst**

**An Exploratory Essay by Galetilia Nazario**

Modern galactic history has been shaped by Humanity. This is a bold claim to make, especially since Humanity has one of the youngest interstellar nations in existence, but it is undeniably true. Their dramatic and violent debut in the Orion Arm a century ago completely changed the Arm's political spectrum, and began trends still followed in the Arm to this day. Similarly, Humanity's disastrous first contact with our people (and by extension, the rest of the Council) set a tone that would color all further relations between the Orion Arm and the rest of the galaxy.

But should why is such a relatively young species so influential? Militarily, they've made fantastic progress in the hundred years they have had space flight, but they still don't have half the ships we do. Scientifically, Humans are famous for their creativity and drive, but Salarians and Liir are just as skilled. In terms of equipment, it took over fifty years for Humanity's ground forces to design a vehicle that could compete one on one with its Turians or Tarkasian counterparts. Politically, they have no more influence than any other Orion nation. No, their most unique quality has nothing to do with conventional strength. Humanity is a catalyst. To explain what I mean by this, we must first explore the history of Humanity, as well as the Orion Arm in general.

Humanity as a whole has had one of the most difficult roads of any Citadel species, with the possible exception of the Krogan. Even by the standards of the Orion Arm, theirs is a violent history, filled with barely-survived disasters. Throughout their 22nd and 23 centuries (18th and 19th centuries by Council reckoning) Humanity faced almost total ecological and economic collapse and dozens of wars, several of which included limited nuclear exchanges. In the space of two centuries, 70% of the Human population was wiped out. Their experience is actually quite similar to that the Drell: ecological failure leading to economic failure leading to desperate wars of conquest and extermination of what remained.

But while the Drell homeworld was beyond hope, Humanity's was not. Through strict policies of rationing and control, Humanity turned away from war and instead started to rebuild. The jewel of this reconstruction was the Node Drive, a technology that finally allowed for faster-than-light travel and gave Humans a chance to leave their crowded, dying planet behind.

Obviously, all this is basic history. Everyone knows the story of the Nova Maria, and how it was destroyed on launch by rogue fleet of Hiver Princess Obsidian Crown. Hivers bombard Earth, Humans launch the last of their nuclear arsenal (over three thousand missile worth) in a last-ditch defense, SolForce emerges as the galactic 'face' of Humanity, and the Hiver War begins. The tale is well known, and I'll avoid repeating it. I only mention it in reference to Humanity's earlier brushes with apocalypse, because Human have a very documented response to threats of extinction. They adapt and overcome.

As mentioned, the Drell and Krogan faced their own apocalypses, but were unable to overcome them. The Krogan nuked themselves back to the Stone Ages (where they remain, according to some of their detractors), and the Drell burned their planet out from under them. Humanity faced nuclear war and ecological collapse almost simultaneously and survived. Why? There are many theories, but I personally believe it is because Human thinking is fluid. Their environment could not sustain their old ways of life, so they adopted new ones. Their wars threatened to eradicate them, so they became pacifists out of necessity. And when their pacifism left them at the mercy of a harsh galaxy, they abandoned it to learn the ways of war again.

This flexibility is a learned trait, not a biological one. Humanity has many examples of static thinking in its history, both ancient and modern. They simply choose to collectively ignore or override such opinions. This may also be a reflection on the brevity of their history. Besides the Zuul, Humanity is the youngest stellar nation in known space. The Asari have ships that were launched before Humanity first left its homeworld. The Hiver Imperium and Tarkasian Empire had centuries of experience exploring space before Humans arrived. Even the Liir had a head-start. As such, they have no traditions to cling to, and no 'mold' they must fit. They become whatever they need to be, because they don't have a set identity. Adaptation IS their identity.

The conflict between static and fluid thinking can be found in the early years of the Hiver-Tarka War. After their First Contact with the Tarka also went poorly, Humanity entered a two-way battle with the Hiver Imperium and Tarkasian Empire. The Hivers and Tarka were in the midst of their own war at this point, one that had been raging on and off for over five hundred years, and neither nation had the time to bother with what both considered to be 'upstart apes'.

SolForce was happy to take advantage of their weakness. The power of the Node drive let them expand at a rapid pace, attacking and colonizing at frantic speed. Humanity was determined to spread as far and wide as it could, so a repeat of the Hiver Incursion could never happen again. Though SolForce started at a massive disadvantage, the conservative mindsets of the Tarka and Hivers gave Humanity the space it needed to claim its foothold on the Orion Arm.

It is at this point in history that Humanity's nature as a catalyst become apparent. Hiver and Tarkasian development has always been somewhat similar to that of the Council, with centuries spent refining existing technologies and very few revolutionary breakthroughs. Humanity's is considerably faster, and as the war progressed, the Hivers and Tarka found themselves adopting Human levels of research and expansion simply to keep up. The Tarkasian Empire alone has made more technological progress in the past few decades than they have in the past two centuries.

Humanity's catalytic effect applies even to itself. When Humanity's expansion began, the Hiver Imperium had no knowledge of its existence. Princess Obsidian Crown was a rogue and a criminal, and her arrival at the Human homeworld was a direct result of her own kin driving her into exile. As the Hiver had ignored all transmissions during her attack on their world, Humanity remained ignorant of this. In the decade after Obsidian Crown's attack, they waged a war of extermination against the Hivers, destroying every colony they found without mercy. Unbeknownst to them, many of these attacks were launched at poorly defended frontier worlds which had no knowledge of Humanity's existence or any desire for conflict. Faced with what they saw as a campaign of mindless genocide that had no cause, the Hivers began putting their previous struggles aside, uniting under leaders like Princess Radiant Frost to strike back at the monsters killing their people.

On the Tarkasian side of the equation, the Tarka had problems of their own. The assassination of their Supreme Commander just a year after First Contact with Humanity not only ruined any hope for peace with the fledgling Human nation, but also threw the Empire into chaos. Commanders on the Human front were forced to deal with conflicting and illogical orders from their High Command as the battle for succession began, while unrestrained mercenary bands began striking at comparatively vulnerable Human worlds to make a quick profit. By the time the dust had settled, the Tarka faced a genocidal enemy that was well fortified and had already seized several of their worlds. His position fragile, the new Supreme had to respond decisively, and wasted no time in doing so.

The Tarkasian Empire and Hiver Imperium were still much larger than the small area the Humans had carved out. Their crews had more experience, their technology was still better than what SolForce had access to, and their fleets were larger. Interaction and study had finally revealed the truth of the Hiver Incursion and the Tarkasian raids to Human officials, and a schism began to form. On the one side were progressive thinkers, who saw that their war was not only unjustified and unethical, but also unwinnable. On the other were the old guard, including then-SolForce Director Ashilde Falke, who believed that peace would never be possible with aliens. In the end, Humanity's fluid nature won out. Director Falke was killed in a coup by her successor, Director Edward Alton MacKenzie, who immediately signed an armistice with the Hivers, officially ending the Hiver-Tarka War.

Though the war was over, the trends it began did not die. Instead, they continued to evolve. The arrival of the Zuul presented a threat to all four Orion nations, and Humanity's new outlook of wary cooperation allowed it to stand side-by-side with its old enemies to hold back the deadly onslaught. When the dust settled, Humanity and the Liir had both emerged as powers equal to their ancient neighbors. Though the Liir's development was not as inspired by Humanity's as the Tarkasian Empire or Hiver Imperium's was, much of their tactics and militarization were developed as a response to the Zuul, who blatantly stole their technology and tactics from the other nations. Directly or indirectly, Humanity created the modern Orion battlefield.

This might simply be dismissed as coincidence, but a similar pattern emerged when a Human exploration fleet was discovered by a Turian patrol attempting to active a dormant relay. As per standard protocol, the patrol opened fire immediately but failed to check the ships against their database. As such, they did not realize they faced a First Contact situation until after several Human vessels had been destroyed and the rest had fled. The limits of ship construction without element zero meant that at this time a Human cruiser was a mere 90 meters long, less than a fifth the size of its Turian equivalent. The results of spinal bombardment against such small ships, especially those designed for exploration and not front-line combat, can be easily imagined.

So Humanity did what it does best: it adapted. Using the Node Drives ability to shunt their vessels into another dimension during travel, their strike forces harassed our fleet with hit and run strikes. Normal methods of tracking were useless, and the 7th Fleet was forced into a protracted campaign of methodical searches and glacial advances that lasted four months before it reached the colony of Shanxi. Many of its lighter vessels had been damaged or destroyed, and they were low on supplies.

The rest of the story is common knowledge. General Williams led a heroic last stand to dupe us into taking an incomplete Node Map, leading the 7th Fleet directly into an ambush at the colony of Excalibur. Mines at Relay 314 crippled the fleet's expected reinforcements, and the 7th fell back for a final climactic struggle to break through the Human fleets waiting at the Relay. Both sides returned with allies, and it was only through the intervention of the Liir and Asari that this minor boarder skirmish did not expand into an all out war between the Council and the Orion Arm. The political aspects of the Human-Turian War have been analyzed quite thoroughly, but war's effect on military conflict were also immense.

In short, this brief struggle changed interstellar conflict for the entire galaxy. For the part of the Council races and their affiliates, the yield of Orion weapons was game-changing. With Orion weaponry, frigate-sized ships could be armed with beam weapons packing the power of a 500 meter spinal gun that would also completely ignore the enemy's barriers. This sparked a radical design change as emphasis drifted away from large fixed guns and back toward smaller, turreted weapons to counter the tactics Humanity had showcased during the war. The tried-and-true tactics of long-ranged bombardment have also begun to give way to more complex strategies in response to the Orion Arm's preference for and proficiency at comparatively close engagement ranges.

In the case of the Orion races, the sheer size of Council vessels was something they were completely unprepared for. A Turian ship was large enough to simply shrug off all but the largest and most advanced Human weapons, and the standard Human tactic of attacking the exposed mounts of enemy turrets was almost completely ineffective against the static guns of our vessels. With mass effect technology now available to them, the Orion Arm began increasing the size of their ships, mounting more weapons and thicker armor. A modern Orion cruiser is the same size as a pre-Contact Orion dreadnought, and mounts a similar amount of equipment while being several orders of magnitude faster and more maneuverable.

The disdain for tradition that Humanity inspired throughout the Orion Arm has begun to catch on elsewhere. Fields long thought to be wastes of time have been reopened and now bear surprising fruit. Trade with the Orion Arm has caused an economic boom throughout much of the galaxy, and the addition of Orion warships along Terminus patrol routes have cut pirate raids in half. Technological and economic development has increased drastically through the Orion Arm and Council space since the Orion races joined as associate species. Still, while Humans are catalysts for change, not all change is good.

The number of pirate raids have decreased, but they now travel in larger numbers. The small size of Orion weapons allows such marauders to be much deadlier, and Independent worlds have begun suffering greatly from their attacks. The addition of Orion mercenary organization like the Silver Spears and Blue Suns has caused corporate wars to become even more aggressive and violent. The rapid rate of expansion Humanity still practices has forced the other Orion races to keep pace, which in turn has brought them into conflict with more conservative Council nations. Increased Orion militarization, including Humanity's construction of a super-dreadnought to bypass the restrictions of the Treaty of Farixen, have put many on edge. The willingness of the Orion races to use those military assets, as was horrifically proven during the Batarian Extermination, is even more unsettling. Though the Human-Turian War is decades old, the ideas it planted are still there. Many in the Orion Arm resent their leaders' decisions to join the Council, and Humanity is not alone in grumbling about what they see are pointless restrictions to their people's development. Traditionalists and progressives have begun clashing on all sides, as the Orion Arm struggles to reconcile its historical traditions of expansion and independence with the economic and technological benefits Council association provides. The Council and its affiliates face a similar problem, as many voices have begun suggesting the Council take a more hands-on approach to the rest of the galaxy, and others wish for the Council to remain relatively uninvolved with the activities of its members.

As the Orion Arm discovered at the end of the Hiver-Tarka War, once the process of change has begun it cannot be stopped. Humanity and the races it has influenced have become the catalyst for a reaction that is slowly consuming our galaxy. But whether this reaction will result in an amalgam stronger than the sum of its parts, or in an explosive blaze that will annihilate everything we've worked centuries to construct, that is something we cannot predict. All we can do is be ready.

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_Instructor Comments: An interesting and entertaining theory, Cadet __Nazario__, but I requested an informative analysis on Human culture. This reads like the lead-in to a bad political thriller. See me after class._

* * *

_Hey, you made it! Thanks for reading this far! Generally, you'll see these Author Notes at the beginning of a chapter, but since this is the very first one, I'm putting them at the bottom. Like where this might be going but you aren't familiar with **Sword of the Stars**? Don't worry! The story is actually a little better if you DON'T know anything about SotS, since the Codex will fill you in on anything you need to know and a lot of the later plot twists are very obvious if you know your SotS lore. _

_As a warning, this was the very first story I ever published, and it kind of shows. I'm going through and reworking a lot of the earlier chapters (this is one of the reworks), but it's slow going. For those of you frustrated, please jump ahead to **Chapter 12: Epitaph**. The plot kicks in there, and I mostly had my writing style fixed by then. All this early stuff is just filler to establish the crossover. _

_Though I mentioned it previously, this story has a LOT of Codex. Mostly this is because the Sword of the Stars universe is huge with reference materials, and having characters constantly stop to explain what a 'meson beam' is or what the different breeds of Hiver are would be too cumbersome, especially since even a child should already know most of this stuff in-universe. If the Codexs bore you, skip them! Only a handful are plot-relevant, and you can always go back._

_One final thought before I stop my rambling. I LOVE feedback. I can't get enough of it, and I try to respond to every review I get. I will even rework a chapter if you can convince me I'm wrong about something. I especially love negative feedback, but please don't just tell me you didn't like my story and aren't reading anymore. I can't fix it if I don't know what's wrong, so telling me what turned you off would be really helpful. Even if what turned you off was just the massive length of this note. _


	2. Extinct (Story)

_Before I get started, I'd like to address some reader concerns:_

_Yes. SotS is quite underpowered for what they are canonically capable of. I wanted this to at least be something of a 'fair' crossover, and that's actually very hard to do with SotS. Their tiny ship size and huge firepower (Cutting Beams = Shadow Beams from B5, holy crap) mean that they can kick a lot of ass in universes like Star Wars, Halo, and Mass Effect, where you have kilometer long starships that don't mount half that. It's largely due to the difference in genres. 4X games usually have strong tech advantages over their FPS and movie counterparts. _

_I would say that Mass Effect is being sold short a little bit, but rather than start an argument (there are forums for that), I'll just say that in order to keep the threats, you know, threatening, SotS has been nerfed, and Mass Effect has been bumped up a bit._

_That said, here is a story (gasp, an actual story, my god!), wherein the Liir will demonstrate exactly why you do not tick off a race with fusion weapons. I do try and proof my stuff, but some typos are bound to slip through, as I am lazy and would rather be playing than proofing. If you find a typo, post it in a review for me to fix, and go get yourself a cookie of your choice._

* * *

"Well, this is dull," grumbled Captain Vorhess as he watched the planet Lorek spin lazily below from his command chair. "Ensign, tell me you have something. All this 'patrolling' is making me want to quit the Navy and become a mercenary."

"Sorry sir," the young Batarian manning the sensors replied. "Local forces have contained the plague riots, and since the planet is quarantined, there's been no ship traffic for days."

"Wonderful. I finally get promoted to captain, and they give me a frigate command in the ass end of nowhere. I have to run all around the system, looking for 'threats'. Meanwhile, the mighty commodore gets to sit his cruiser in dry dock because of 'plague contamination' and have some Asari slave girl serve him honey mead in his luxury suite. Makes me sick."

"Captain, are you sure it's wise to- Sir, new contacts! Six unidentified frigates! They just appeared next to Hammer Station!"

"Frigates? What the hell are-"

"Positive IFF! They're registered as Liir cruisers!"

"Oh no.." Vorhess said in a low tone, zooming the ship's holographic display in on the ships with a wave of his omnitool. "Get us out of here! Maximum speed out of the system!"

No sooner had the captain spoken than there was a brilliant flash of light from outside the ship. A shower of glowing yellow bolts poured from the Liir ships, passing through its barriers like they weren't even there and hammering into the armor. As the lights faded, it looked like the station looked like wax brought too close to a flame. Huge swaths had melted away, and the rest was riddled with melted holes each size of a small shuttle. As Vorhess watched, something exploded deep inside the station, and about a third of it broke off and began drifting away.

"Maximum speed, aye!" the pilot replied, and the rest of the crew seemed all too happy to let him plot a swift course away from the battle. Many of them had friends who worked side jobs as pirates in Liir space, or had even engaged in some piracy themselves. There was no way they wanted to be in the path of a Liir warfleet, not when their own cruiser was sitting helpless in the burning wreck of the station's drydock.

"Sir, twelve contacts entering the system! Liir destroyers!" the sensor officer cried, and their icons instantly appeared in Vorhess' display.

"Make for Dorgal, we can lose them when they slow for the planet's gravity well," Vorhess ordered, pulling up a display of several the ships that had started moving toward them. Something looked off... "Belay that! Full evasive! Those are torpedo ships!"

The captain felt a sickening pull as the ship's inertial commentators tried to adjust for the tight roll their pilot was attempting to pull off. He almost made it. Several of the torpedoes flashed past in arcs of crackling white light as they chased the ship's countermeasures, but the pilot couldn't adjust for the ship's momentum. The frigate slid sideways, exposing part of its flank to the enemy ships. To the Liir gunners, it was a target they couldn't possibly miss.

The ship heaved as a torpedo slammed into it, crashing into the frigate's flank. Pain blossomed as Vorhess was thrown from his command chair to the floor. Wiping blood from several of his eyes, Vorhess saw the ship was now running on emergency power, and judging by the weightless feeling in his body, the gravity appeared to be going out as well. Somewhere, a warning Klaxon was blaring, and he thought he could hear someone screaming in pain, though the way his ears were ringing, he couldn't be sure.

"Damage report!" he bellowed into the chaos.

"Engines are offline," said a voice from somewhere behind him. It wasn't his Exo, that man was laying dead over by the windows, which Vorhess noticed with some alarm were heavily cracked in several places. Fortunately the armored shutters had closed over them, keeping the atmosphere inside. "The core is intact, but the mains were mostly severed by that last torpedo. Until they can fix them, we've got no barriers or weapons."

"Damn it," Vorhess snarled, climbing shakily to his feet and waving his omnitool at the main display. It sputtered and refused to engage. Enraged, he kicked it savagely, and was satisfied when it flickered to life, showing the Liir destroyers holding their position some distance from his battered ship. "How long for repairs?"

"Not sure," said the voice, and now that his head was clearer, Vorhess recognized it as belonging to the ensign who normally crewed the sensor array. "They say they're going to try and get engines back online, but depending on the damage, it could take hours."

"Damn those overgrown fish. Why don't they just finish us off?" Something clicked into place in the captain's mind then, and his eyes widened. "Ensign, get me engineering, on the double!"

The young batarian pressed several buttons on his terminal, and when nothing happened, pulled up his omnitool and fiddled in the air above it. A series of sparks flew from the terminal, and Vorhess heard the voice of his engineer over the speaker.

"Captain, I'll have engines for you as soon as I can. Half my team is dead and the other half injured. This is the best I can do"

"No, stop your repairs. You engage those engines and we're all dead. I need you to shut down the core."

"Shut down the core? Captain, are you insane? The Liir-"

"The Liir are waiting to see if this ship is still alive, or just taking its time about dying. As soon as it becomes obvious we can actually fix this damage, they'll fire another volley and finish us for good. Our only hope is to cut all non-essential power, and hope they find something else to shoot at."

"...alright, sir. You'll all want to put on suits, I'm going to have to cut power to life support too. Engineering out."

"Captain, I have a camera feed to Lorek. I think you'll want to see this," the ensign said as soon as the channel closed.

"Put it through. Let's see how our dear friend the Commodore is doing." The main display switched to a slightly out of focus shot of the planet behind them. Hammer Station was nothing but burning wreckage now, and Vorhess thought he saw the prow of the commodore's cruiser drifting in the ruins, but it might have been his imagination. He also spotted debris fields at the last known positions of the other patrol frigates. Apparently they hadn't fared any better than his had.

As he and the rest of the bridge crew watched, a trio of destroyers began approaching the planet. Each fired a single large missile before the entire enemy fleet turned and started moving away from the planet.

"No radiation or energy signature from the missiles," the ensign supplied helpfully. "They don't seem to have any kind of payload..."

"Bio-weapons. It's a damn plague fleet. They'll wipe out every living thing on the planet with those!" the captain snarled, pounding his fist into the projector and causing it to spark and die again. With a sigh, he hung his head and spoke softly. "Everyone to your suits. Engineering should be cutting life support any time now."

No one spoke as they all climbed into their environment suits. It would have seemed wrong, somehow. What did one say after watching xenocide?

Bulky suit creaking in the silence, Vorhess sat down in his command chair (the arm had been torn off, he noted with a grim bitterness). No sooner had he done so than the lights died, and he started floating up into the air. Wearily, he belted himself down and turned to the crew.

"Someone go down to Engineering," he ordered, his voice flat and exhausted. "Tell them to do what repairs they can without power, and to fire up the core only when our suits are about to give out. I'm not taking any chances."

"What then, Captain? Set course for Khar'Shan? To warn them?" the ensign asked, and Vorhess was grateful for the helmet that covered the young batarian's face. He didn't think he wanted to see the expression.

"Khar'Shan will know soon anyway, if they don't already. The Hegemony is about to be paid back for every raiding vessel we sent into Liir space," Vorhess said darkly. "And it appears they are big believers in interest. When we have power again, if we aren't dead, set course for Omega. We'll try and figure out what to do when we get there."

Silence returned to the bridge as far behind the crippled ship, a world full of 5 million dying souls spun quietly through the stars.

_Following the Batarian Extermination, several Batarian ships that had been listed by both sides as destroyed in action were unable to be located by salvage teams. It is unknown if these 'lost ships' were merely taken by rogue scavengers who left no record of their haul, or if the ships survived to lip away, seeking shelter at pirate ports or other shipyards that were off the grid. As Batarian ship designs were already popular with pirates, it is unknown how many of these ships were re-purposed for illegal use following the fall of the Hegemony. _


	3. The Batarian Extermination (Codex)

**Codex Entry: Batarian Extermination**

The Batarian Extermination has its roots in both the Batarian tradition of slavery and the effect of psionics on the cultures of various Council species. Though slavery has been outlawed in Council space almost since its founding, the Batarian caste system utilized slaves as an integral part of its hierarchy. Thus, the Batarian Hegemony's official stance on such laws has always been that they are blatant attempts by the Council to stamp out Batarian culture. The compromise that was agreed to when the Batarians joined the Council was that they would only be allowed to keep other Batarians as slaves, since this would constitute an internal matter and thus be outside the Council's jurisdiction. Batarians were explicitly forbidden to collect or keep members of any other race as slaves.

In the many centuries since this compromise was reached, numerous accounts of aliens being enslaved by Batarians continued to surface. The Hegemony was always quick to distance itself from any individuals caught in possession of such slaves, claiming that such people were criminals and did not represent the Hegemony as a whole. Though stings and investigations by Council Spectres exposed many Batarian slaving rings and implicated several key officials in the Hegemony's upper castes, official inspectors to Batarian colonies were never able to find any evidence of widespread alien slavery. As such, the Council was unable to justify any serious military action against the Hegemony.

The arrive of the Orion races changed everything. The horrors of the Zuul War had soured the various races against the concept of slavery, and the Orion Arm's initial forays into the Terminus Systems were violent enough to nearly spark a war. Simultaneously, the potential of psychic abilities, as demonstrated by races like the Liir and Zuul, was extremely attractive to many species, including the Batarians. Though the Liir were willing to work closely with the Asari Republics and Salarian Union to further both nations' knowledge of psionics, they expressly refused similar requests from the Hegemony. The other Orion races were quick to snub them as well, with the Tarkasian Empire going so far as to place a full trade embargo on the Hegemony and refuse all diplomatic contact until such time as the Batarians outlawed slavery.

Locked out of what was swiftly becoming a technological and economic renaissance, the Hegemony became desperate. The high demand for exotic alien slaves, especially among the upper castes, had caused the Hegemony officials to unofficially fund slavers and pirates in the past, and so they turned to such expendable assets again to try and steal what they could not buy. Surgical strikes against isolated Orion expeditions were able to obtain valuable salvage to assist the Hegemony's technological development, but the greatest prize remained elusive: knowledge of psionics.

Documents recovered in the wake of Extermination revealed that the Batarian Special Intervention Unit had done a great deal of research into the Zuul War, and it is currently speculated that the Hegemony was hoping to learn the secrets of psychic domination and inquisition as the Zuul had done. More documents, recovered in the early months of the Extermination by Spectre Jondum Bau, showed that the Hegemony sponsored several attempts to penetrate the Turian Ninth Fleet's blockade around Zuul space in 2161. These attempts were universally intercepted and repulsed, but were presumably attempts to acquire Zuul prisoners for research into their abilities.

Unable to obtain Zuul subjects, the Hegemony focused their attention on a more risky target: the Liir. SIU and Batarian External Force records indicate that sponsored slavers were able to collect over a hundred Liir 'subjects' from Freeholds and trading vessels between 2163 and 2170, but most did not survive long in captivity. In addition, slave implants severely stunted Liir psychic potential, hindering their research efforts. Under mounting pressure from the Hegemony's leaders, a plan was created to kidnap a Liir Elder, in the hopes that studying such a powerful creature would finally lead to a breakthrough.

The culmination of this plan was the Mindoir Massacre in 2170. A large pirate fleet attacked the Liir world of Mindoir, destroying its orbital defenses and successfully abducting the planet's Eldest and over a thousand younger Liir. The response was immediate and violent. A Liir fleet intercepted the pirates in deep space, crippling their vessels and rescuing the captives. Psychic interrogation of the surviving crew revealed that the raid had been sponsored, but not who had sponsored it. In response, the Black Eldest deployed the Seekers to investigate.

Though the raid against Mindoir was a failure, it exposed two serious weaknesses in the Liir's defenses: Liir stutterwarp slowed dramatically near gravity wells like stars and planets, and the Liir possessed no form of militia or emergency terrestrial defense. Slavers faced almost no resistance when they reached the ground, and clever course plotting would allow raiders to simply outrun any pursuer. The Batarians exploited this weakness, launching almost a dozen raids against the Liir between 2170 and 2171.

Their greed would be their undoing. The Seekers were able to track the slavers and their cargo and obtained enough circumstantial evidence to implicate the Hegemony in the attacks. The Liir presented this evidence to the Council and requested action against the Hegemony. Though there was no hard proof that the Batarians had sponsored the raids and the Batarian ambassador completely disavowed the attacks, the Council still voted unanimously to expel the Hegemony.

Sanctions from their previous aggression and raids had taken their toll on the Hegemony's economy long before before the Orion Arm opened, a fact which was only exacerbated by their isolationist policies. Heavy tariffs on imports, ostensibly to protect 'Batarian businesses interests', limited their opportunities for trade. This economic difficulty spread to full out recession following the arrival of the Orion races. When the Hegemony was expelled from the Council, their recession turned to a depression as the Asari Republics, Turian Hierarchy, Hiver Imperium, and Liir all joined the Tarkasian Empire in its embargo.

Desperate for a way to revitalize their failing economy, the Hegemony's officials began sponsoring more pirate raids. No longer constrained by the Council, the Hegemony began collecting slaves indiscriminately from any world poorly defended enough to attack. Though the Freeholds and independent worlds in the Terminus and Traverse bore the brunt of these attacks, the Liir swiftly became another favored target.

Garrisons of Liir ships prevented their worlds from being the easy targets they had once been, but while nations like the Turian Hierarchy and SolForce responded to raids with overwhelming retaliation, the Liir did not respond at all. Though Liir fleets would intercept raiders as they approached, pursue them when they fled, and defend their worlds with ruthless tenacity, they made no proactive strikes to stop pirates or slavers. This passivity compared to the brutal offensives launched by other nations made many pirate lords and criminal leaders reluctant to attack any targets that were not either independent or affiliated with the Liir, and for several years the Liir bore the brunt of this increased aggression. It came to a head in 2176, when the Hegemony sponsored a massive attack against the colony of Elysium that would become known as the Skillian Blitz.

The sheer scale and ferocity of the Blitz took the galaxy by surprise, but in the end the offensive proved futile. Though the defenders were outnumbered more than three to one, many of the attacking vessels were outdated and poorly maintained. Several of the ships participating in the attack were launched during the Krogan Rebellions. Their crews were largely outlaws and mercenaries, with few having any professional training to speak of. In contrast, the Liir ships were equipped with some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy, such as antimatter torpedoes, Mark IV energy shields, and pulsed phasers. Liir telepathy allowed the defenders to instantly coordinate their actions, outmaneuvering their opponents at every turn.

In the end, the siege was broken first by the arrival of a Hiver strikeforce through the planet's warp gate and then by a Turian patrol flotilla that intercepted the survivors as they attempted to flee. The Blitz was an abject failure for the Batarians, but the population of Elysium still suffered greatly during the attack. Concerned that the Batarians might sponsor even more attacks in spite of the disaster of the Blitz, the Black again dispatched the Seekers, this time to research the possibility of declaring the Batarian race Suul'ka.

Though the term Suul'ka is typically used to describe the mysterious race that enslaved the primitive Liir, it is actually a title, not a name. Though an exact translation is impossible, 'Winter Mind' is a close approximation. It describes any being that acts completely for its own interests, with no regard for the emotions or pain of others. To the Liir, a Suul'ka causes suffering simply by existing, and should be destroyed whenever found.

Following the Skillian Blitz, the Liir sent several ambassadors to the Batarian Hegemony to request that they cease funding pirate raids against other nations. Though the Liir could not prove the Hegemony's guilt beyond evidence obtained through telepathic interrogation, the Asari Republics agreed to mediate these meetings. Despite their apparent desire for peace, the Liir ended each attempt at negotiation swiftly after it began. According to testimony given by the Liir representatives, the Batarian ambassadors had been given strict instructions to deny all allegations, and none of them believed the Hegemony would or should ever stop sponsoring attacks.

The reports assembled by the Seekers, which were made public following the war crime trials at the end of the Extermination, were equally grim. The Batarian caste system was at the core of their society, and the Hegemony's propaganda maintained that changing it in any way would be cultural treason. Batarians were educated from childhood that slaves were less that people. Official government rhetoric stated that 'two-eyes' were inherently less intelligent and should be subjugated. Though not all Batarians were wealthy enough to afford slaves, those that did not saw little wrong with the practice, and many longed to own a slave themselves one day. Resistance or disapproval of slaver and aggression was non-existent.

Eventual investigation into these reports would prove that many of their findings were actually incorrect. Some Batarians did disapprove of slavery, and not all believed that Batarians were inherently superior. But the Hegemony's control over the information their people received was so advanced and their skill at silencing dissidents was so great the evidence of such protests was almost completely erased. The few who saw through the regime's lies were forced into hiding, articles or statements that disagreed with the 'accepted' truth deleted or altered. What the Liir saw as a culture that accepted and embraced evil was in fact merely the result of a campaign of selfish misdirection and lies. But it would be the Batarian people, not their rulers, who would pay the steepest price.

Facing continued aggression with no diplomatic resolution seeming possible, the Black Eldest decided to mobilize. In early 2502, unbeknownst to the rest of the galaxy, the Batarian race was declared Suul'ka. Immediately afterward Liirian agents released an advanced retro-plague on the Citadel, Omega, and many other major trading hubs. The plague spread quickly due to its lengthy incubation period and ability to utilize other alien species as carriers. Within three months, the plague was present on virtually every major Batarian world, including Khar'shan.

Their people dying in the streets and public order dissolving, Batarian officials began contracting with corporations like Binary Helix to assist their dwindling research staff with work on a cure. Just as this research began, Liir ships began attacking Batarian worlds without warning, bombarding them with bio-missiles and leaving as swiftly as they had come. Not even the smallest outpost was spared. Fearing war with the Terminus Systems for this unchecked aggression, the Council attempted to reason with the Liir, but the Citadel Eldest refused to speak to them. The Batarian fleet congregated at their core worlds to try and fight off the Liir, but the damage done by the plague was already severe, crippling both their government and military. Many ships were forced to operate with a skeleton crew, and some vessels could not be launched at all. The Batarian command staff had been ravaged by the plague, making a coherent defense impossible.

Following their attacks, Liir carriers remained in orbit over the worlds they visited, turning away sapient aid vessels and shooting down any ships attempting to leave the planets while the main fleets pressed inward. The Liir forces ignored all offers of surrender and ruthlessly hunted down escape pods and fleeing craft. None were ever spared, and ships of other races were given a choice of submitting to search or being destroyed. Searched ships were spared, though the same could not be said for any Batarians found aboard. Clairvoyance and telepathic examination of the crew made attempts to smuggle Batarians past the blockade an exercise in futility. Seekers and other Liir ground forces were covertly deployed throughout the known galaxy to destroy relief efforts and sabotage all attempts at a cure for the Extermination Plague.

Though the Hegemony's splintering leadership attempted to conceal the truth for as long as possible, after several months of conflict the growing number of worlds that had fallen silent and battered ships that limped back to dock became impossible to hide. Hegemony representatives appealed to the Council for intervention, but the conflict between the Batarians and Liir was an external one, and the Liir were the aggressors. As the Liir were not threatened by an outside power and the dispute did not involve two member species, the Council was unable to justify taking military action to prevent the Extermination. The Council's attempts at a diplomatic solution were rebuffed, their threats and economic penalties were ignored. Unable to convince the Council to directly intervene, the Hegemony made a desperate bargain with the Morrigi Confederation for assistance.

The Morrigi at first appeared helpful, placing defense fleets around several major Batarian industrial worlds and providing much-needed medical aid throughout the remains of the Hegemony. Without the Plague to handicap them, Confederation vessels were able to provide support and infrastructure for the fractured Batarian navy, which had long-since fallen into disarray. With the assistance of the Morrigi, the Batarians were able to achieve their first true victories against the Liir in the Battles of Aratoht and Erszbat. Any hope brought by these victories was swiftly crushed when Hegemony's new ally revealed its true colors.

Under the guise of repairing the damaged Batarian infrastructure, the Morrigi were able bypass the government's information control and establish many 'pirate' broadcasting facilities throughout the Hegemony. These facilities and their transmissions were not only hidden from easy detection, but were also receiving points for sub-space observation signals and unrestricted extranet transmissions. Once created, the facilities were set to run automatically and abandoned for Batarian civilians to find.

The effects were devastating. Civilian morale had already been crushed by the ravages of the Extermination Plague and what limited news had slipped through the Hegemony's information nets. The truth about their deteriorating situation and the extent of their government's lies shocked the surviving Batarians. Rebellions began igniting across the Hegemony as the lower castes rose against those they blamed for their miseries. Taking advantage of the chaos, the Morrigi fleets annexed the planets they had been charged with protecting and withdrew their support from the rest of the Hegemony. The Liir wasted no time in taking advantage of this weakness and sent a massive armada to strike directly at the Batarian homeworld of Khar'shan.

As the Hegemony floundered in civil war and the Liir readied the final blow, Governor Grothan Pazness of Camala arrived on the Citadel to make a final desperate plea for the survival of his people. A popular figure with a reputation for fairness, Pazness was already dying of the Plague when he arrived. Though he had not been officially appointed as a representative for the Hegemony, the Council agreed to hear his case. Pazness' famous speech lasted twenty minutes, after which he collapsed on the floor of the Council audience chamber. Swayed by his arguments and the overwhelming evidence of Liir brutality, the Council voted unanimously to declare the Batarian Hegemony a failed state, giving them the ability to deploy ships in defense of the Batarian people. The next day, Governor Pazness slipped into a coma. He died a week later.

A last ditch defense of Khar'shan was quickly assembled. The Turian Hierarchy and Tarkasian Empire each donated a full fleet to the defense, with the Salarian Union, Asari Republics, SolForce, and Hanar Illuminated Primacy all providing flotillas or squadrons of their own. Shortly afterward, three Liir fleets descended on the system, deploying on the far side of its star. After a tense standoff that lasted fifteen minutes, all Liir ships in the system surrendered unconditionally. Immediately after this surrender, Liir ships began launching shuttles and other manned escape vehicles into nearby stars or other hostile environments. All told, over a third of the Liir invasion force committed suicide within twenty four hours of the surrender at Khar'shan. Attempts to stop them proved futile.

The surviving Liir either surrendered or retreated back to their own territory. The Citadel Eldest resurfaced and began negotiating with the Council regarding the aftermath of the Extermination. Many believed the Liir's crimes should warrant immediate expulsion from the Council, or that the Liir should be forced to sign a permanent disarmament treaty. The Council issued a summons to the Black Eldest to decide the issue, which included an indictment against the Black himself for crimes against sentience. The Black declined to attend or issue any statement in his defense, but did release the information the Seekers had gathered prior to the Extermination. Ambassador Stone Mind of the Hiver Imperium instead requested the right to speak in defense of the Liir, which the Council allowed.

Stone Mind's defense remains a subject of controversy. As the Plague only targeted Batarians, it did not violate the Citadel Conventions, so Stone Mind argued that could only be judged as an ethical crime, not a legal one. Unborn children are considered alive upon conception in Tarkasian and Liir culture, as well as in portions of Human and Asari society. Therefore, to the Liir, the Genophage was no ethical than the Extermination Plague. If the Liir were to be judged by the Council's ethical standards, the Council should have to submit to judgement based on the standards of the Liir. In response to the Liir's attacks against defenseless civilians, Stone Mind cited the precedent set by Turian 'safe camps'. Once established, any civilians refusing to enter a safe camp is executed instantly. Stone Mind pointed out that this practice of safe camps and hastatim was implemented due to the Turian's cultural belief that no foe would surrender without them. Regardless of if this belief is true, the Liir's slaughter of civilians was likewise rooted in their cultural belief that a Suul'ka's mere existence is a crime. Therefore if the Turian Hierarchy may universally declare a group of civilians to be combatants because of their culture, the Liir may do so as well.

As inflammatory as his statements were, the Council agreed by two-thirds majority to find the Liir innocent of crimes against sentience. Despite this, the Citadel Eldest stated after the trial that the Liir still wished to atone for what they had done to the Batarian people. To that end, it requested the surviving Batarians be made a client species of the Liir, who would look after them and their worlds until the Batarian population grew to the point where they could again be considered a galactic power. Despite the Liir's apparent sincerity, the Council was understandably reluctant to transfer control of Batarians worlds to the race that had just attempted to wipe them out. Instead, the Batarians were made a protectorate of the Council itself, with the Black Swimmers helping rebuild the former Hegemony planets as a form of life-long community service. The Liir were also levied with heavy annual reparations to the Batarian people for a number of more minor offenses. The Citadel Eldest accepted these terms, and the annual Liir reparation payment has never failed to be less than twice the amount mandated by the Council. Among the Liir this is known as the Black Tribute, though among the Batarians it is typically called the Blood Harvest.

Though the Liir released a cure of the Extermination Plague immediately after their surrender, the Salarian Union had already created one a month prior. By the time hostilities ended and both cures could be widely distributed, the Extermination had claimed an estimated ninety percent of all living Batarians. Despite this astronomical death toll, once order was restored and the Plague was cured the Batarian people were somewhat more accepting of the Black Swimmers that settled on their worlds than was originally anticipated. Incidents of violence between the two factions has been largely limited to minor altercations, with only a handful of riots or terrorist actions requiring full scale intervention by Council occupation forces. This fragile peace is aided by the fact that the Black Swimmers on Batarian worlds have remained both apologetic and helpful, never offering violence no matter how provoked. Former Batarian worlds are reported to be peaceful and productive, but are still very underpopulated. Tourism to these worlds is currently forbidden until reconstruction is complete.


	4. Crows (Story)

_*EDIT: Originally, Tokhta's speech was a copy of the one used in the Murder of Crows trailer, but after it was pointed out that this did not fit well, and was bordering close to plagiarism, I have since changed it to an original one.*_

__*EDIT 2: Setting changed from an empty plain in the hills to the middle of a city, and more showing off has been added. Because the Morrigi really love that kind of thing.*__

* * *

"I thought the Morrigi were a largely extinct race," Ambassador Tevos remarked calmly.

"As did we," Anita Goyle murmured darkly, surveying the bazar with angry eyes. "Clearly, the Crows have been hiding their true colors for some time now."

The pair stood in the middle of a large market, large being the operative word. Morrigi of every shape and size had set up their own areas, showcasing objects both mundane and fantastic. Drones zipped through the air like swirling birds, transporting small objects or carrying about other mundane tasks. Based off the view from the shuttle they had taken down to the planet, the bazar stretched on for at least two kilometers in every direction, and was surrounded by titanic pyramids. A few kilometers away, a second city floated over the first, transports and other craft flitting endlessly between it and its grounded cousin.

"It is actually for your benefit," the pilot had told them after their transport had landed. "The Harrowing is traditionally not a place for trade, but the Morru Khan wished you to be able to sample our luxuries before the main event."

"Tokhta failed to mention exactly what the main event was," Anita muttered darkly. They had seen quite a few events since their arrival, from one on one combat between Morrigi in orbit-capable powered armor, each equipped with their own set of attack drones, to a full simulated invasion on the planet's larger moon. That last one had certainly gotten the attention of the turian and krogan representatives. "And this useless piece of junk won't tell me anything."

The human ambassador indicated the drone that followed the pair, currently displaying a hologram of two destroyers strafing each other through a nearby asteroid field.

"I am sorry, Ambassador. I am not programmed with that knowledge. It will be broadcast to me when the time is right," the drone chirped obediently, just as it had every other time Anita had complained about this issue.

"Be patient. I'm sure all will be revealed soon," Tevos answered with a knowing smile, turning to examine an intricate bracelet. The towering Morrigi female launched into a long and complicated story about the bracelet's origins, but Anita automatically turned her out. A sale pitch was the same wherever you went.

Suddenly, the drones overhead all froze in the air. As one, they turned to face the gathering below them and spoke with a single booming voice.

"**Attention. The final event of the Honing will begin in five minutes."**

No sooner had they spoken than the drones all returned to what they had been doing, as though nothing had ever happened. The Morrigi below, however, began swiftly packing away their wares. With a flurry of wings, a white-feathered male landed before them, flanked by two others in full armor.

"Tokhta the Just," Tevos said, bowing gracefully at the waist. "We finally meet. I offer you peace on behalf of the asari people, and the Citadel Council as well."

"Be careful, Ambassador, or I just might take you up on your offer. I hear you may soon become the new asari Councilor. Congratulations," Tokhta replied, his eyes twinkling. "And Ambassador Goyle. It has been some time since we last spoke."

"Indeed," Anita agreed with a neutral tone. "It would appear your people were not as forthcoming with us as we had at first assumed."

"You know what humans say about assuming, Ambassador," the Morrigi answered with that same mischief. "Come with me. I shouldn't be late for my own Honing, it wouldn't look good. You two are the last I must collect, the others are already waiting."

"You still haven't explained what this main event is supposed to be," Anita accused, falling in behind Tokhta. She also noticed grimly that the two armored Morrigi had slid in behind them. Judging from their weapons and the drones used in the duel, they were wielding the powerful laser rifles Morrigi seemed to favor, with the armor piecing chakkram cannons mounted in their drones. The fingers of the suit would hold sharpened melee blades, and considering their size…

"You'll find out in just a minute, Ambassador," Tokhta said over his shoulder, breaking her out of her paranoid thoughts. "We're almost there."

Ahead of them was a small platform on a spire. A series of pillars rose from the platform, and Anita recognized them as control pillars, the Morrigi equivalent of a computer terminal. It had no walls or ceiling, but she noticed a large holotank had been placed directly in the center. Several colorful Morrigi males waited expectantly for them, along with the rest of the diplomatic group.

"Councilors, Ambassadors. I trust I have not kept you waiting long," Tokhta called, slithering up the side of the spire with ease. "Please, make yourself comfortable, but I must request you stay off the command platform. We will be starting shortly."

"Still won't say what the point of all this was," Var'Anu Kuumak'Orr, the Tarkasian ambassador, grumbled quietly as he lumbered over to Anita. "Damn Crows. The Supreme should have sent a woman for this, like your people did. I don't have the patience for their bullshit."

"The fact that you know that, Var'Anu, is why he sent you," buzzed Prince Stone Mind, the Hiver ambassador, as he also walked over to where the others were standing. "Be patient. You know the Crows, nothing is ever what it seems. Besides, you should be proud. You haven't made one joke about serving me with butter all day."

"I would never make such a tasteless mark and expect to survive your sons' reprisal, Stone," Var'Anu answered with a savage grin. "Perhaps we should try cheeses instead. Though I imagine I'll still come out worse for it."

"But Tarkasians do not become intoxicated when consuming dairy products," Tevos stated, confused. "Why would you come out worse?"

"He was making a joke," Ambassador Eshelen explained, sliding over on the many tentacles of her hydration armor. "Tarkasian humor is usually self-deprecating."

"Amusing," said their Spectre escort, in a tone that indicated it was anything but. The young Turian's name was Saren, if Anita remembered correctly. He stood off to one side, a bored expression on his face. It looked like he was about to go on, but was cut off when the evening sky suddenly lit up with blinding lights.

Below them, the clouds of drones had all stopped, and were now hovering motionless. Light shone from the tops of every drone, combining above the gathering to form a massive 3D image: two massive fleets opposing one another on the outskirts of the system's asteroid field. As Anita watched, a set of numbers in the Trade Language began counting down in the top right.

"Is this a live feed?" she asked suddenly as everything clicked into place.

"Of course." Tokhta wound himself around the largest command pillar, shooting them all what passed among Morrigi as a triumphant smirk. "Now if you will all excuse me, the main event is about to begin. I must defend my title."

"How many dreadnoughts are up there?" Stone Mind asked, tilting his head back and staring upward.

"Fifteen," Vaanu confirmed, pointing at a running tally in the holotank in the midst of the command pillars. "That's more than the damn Salarians!"

"It would appear the Morrigi have been quite busy recently," Eshelen stated in a tone that from anyone but a Liir would have been dry sarcasm. "Interesting."

The timer ticked down to zero, and both fleets immediately began moving, the angular Morrigi designs quickly slicing through the darkness as they began maneuvering. Predictably, both sides began immediately launching drones in large numbers almost immediately.

As she watched, she noticed two different tactics present. Tokhta had divided his fleet into several parts, sending several groups of destroyers forward while the bulk of his fleet remained back. The screening destroyers used maneuverability to their advantage while his torpedo ships and carriers hid behind the main force in the asteroid belt. Meanwhile, the enemy fleet seemed to be avoiding the belt like it was poison, instead grouping together in a tight knot, using their combined point defense to cut down drones, missiles, and torpedoes before they could get close.

"Tokhta is the existing Morru Khan, so he must defend," a female voice called, and the group turned to see a pair of Morrigi females sliding around the sides of the spire to walk toward them. "He is allowed to place a limited number of defenses, but his opponent is allowed to choose where he will deploy."

"That explains it." Anita turned back to the battle raging overhead, trying to estimate the weaponry mounted on each ship. Positron beams, kelvinic torpedoes, mass drivers… "His opponent must be afraid of asteroid traps. If he stays away from the field, he's safe."

"Safe is a relative term." The Morrigi female rose to her full height, staring down at the group before bowing her head in greeting. "I am Akhilleos the Swift, mate of Tokhta the Just. Our soil is honored by your presence."

"What is that glowing beam?" Tevos wondered, pointing at a cruiser that had snagged a passing destroyer and was dragging it into the firing arc of its guns.

"Tractor beam," Anita answered easily as the destroyer broke apart under the force of the cruiser's beam weapons. "We don't mount them on anything in Council space; ships there are too big for it to be useful."

Silence settled on the group for a moment as they watched the battle unfold. The challenger's strategy appeared to be paying off. Tokhta was taking significant casualties, and his forces had been forced back from their bombardment position, with numerous ships destroyed or crippled. Councilor Tevos visibly flinched as one of Tokhta's dreadnoughts exploded violently under a barrage of mass driver rounds.

"The destruction is simulated," explained Akhilleos reassuringly. "The actual battle is fought with dummy warheads and tracking lasers. What you see in the sky is a simulation based off the data sent from the fleet. We are not monstrous enough to kill our own crews over a matter of leadership."

"That makes at least one race." Vaanu glanced pointedly at Anita and Stone as he spoke, though his large face was smiling as he did. Something flashed in the sky above, drawing all eyes back up to the battle.

The challenger had begun pushing forward through the wreckage of Tokhta fleet, when everything went wrong. There were several bright flashes, and the enemy ships were violently pulled toward the origin of each flash. As they watched, the flashes grew into huge balls of fire, pulling the enemy ships into their depths.

"Did you just make a miniature star?" Anita accused in horror, wheeling to face Akhilleos, who was looking rather smug.

"We call them implosion mines," the Morrigi answered calmly, even as more mines detonated while the enemy fleet tried to extricate itself from the debris field. "The gravity field pulls the enemy to a single point, where you then place a continuous fusion reaction. As you can see, it's quite effective."

"The whole battle was a trap," Eshelen pointed out as several Morrigi carriers decloaked behind the enemy fleet and unleashed a swarm of drones as their opponents floundered. Tokhta's main force had also begun to turn, wheeling around to face their opponents with unearthly grace and opening up with everything they had. "Tokhta sacrificed the ships from his main fleet so the debris would hide the sensor signatures of the mines he placed inside his formation. He encouraged the enemy's tight formations to maximize the damage from the mines."

"It appears that way." Stone watched attentively as repeated strafing runs finally forced a cruiser to succumb, breaking it into burning chunks as the drones that destroyed it swooped away. "This whole battle has been a deception. I doubt there ever were any asteroid traps."

"There weren't," Tokhta's voice called as he began unwinding himself from his control pillar. "My honored opponent has just surrendered. Continuing to waste lives when he is clearly beaten would merely shame him in front of the females. It should show on the simulation in just a moment, it lags behind by about a minute."

No sooner had the Morrigi leader finished speaking than the words **Simulation ended, Morru Khan Tokhta the Just Victorious** began flashing in the sky above them, the dueling ships fading away to darkness.

"I trust you all found my little show enlightening," he continued, fluttering down to stand between the two females. "On behalf of the Morrigi Confederation, I wish all of your races peace and prosperity. My people only desire to coexist in harmony with all of yours. It is my hope that we will all be able to work together to create a bright future for this galaxy. However, should thoughts of war and conflict ever enter your minds, I have this to say to you.

"My people were ancient when yours were still infants. We have watched you all rise from your humble beginnings to grasp at the very stars, but we knew their secrets before you even suspected there might be more than flat earth and empty sea. Only the asari may claim to match us, and they have no inkling the power we once held at the height of our empire. Your most advanced weapons do not impress us, for we knew their workings before you learned to forge metal."

"All of you are guilty." As he spoke, Tokhta glanced at each of the ambassadors in turn, his gaze level and daring them to challenge him. "We were kind and benevolent when you were but helpless hatchlings. And in our darkest hour, you repaid our generosity by ignoring our warnings, looting our tombs, and claiming our nests as your own. Even your Citadel Council, when they learned about our former wealth, began hunting for our hidden places, in hopes of taking what was not rightfully theirs."

The females to either side of Tokhta seemed to grow in size, slowly beginning to tower over even the Hiver prince as they reared back and flared their wings. Their claws seemed more menacing, and it almost looked like fire was flowing inside their jaws.

"We will tolerate this no longer."

Tokhta rose up in to air, wings flapping, and suddenly, he was an avenging archangel, full of wrath and fury, glaring down at them all. Two massive dragons flanked him, fire in their mouths and death in their eyes. From where he hovered, the angel that was Tokhta spoke again with a voice that seemed to make the very earth shake.

"Make no mistake, children of the dust. We desire nothing but peace. But we will no longer brook your insults. Should you dare to test our mettle, look to the skies. For you can be certain we shall come for you."

As the words left his lips, dozens upon dozens of Morrigi combat drones tore through the skies overhead, easily breaking the sound barrier and deafening everyone below with the noise of their passing. Anita swore she could feel the breeze from their passing as the drones tore through the air, engines screaming. And then they were gone, leaving the Anita's ears ringing and eyes straining against the sudden darkness. But she did not miss the expression on Tokhta's face as he leaned very close to the group and hissed in a harsh whisper:

"Like a murder of Crows."

_Shortly after the Honing, the Morrigi Confederation was offered associate member status on the Citadel. In a surprising turn of events, they declined. They did request, and were granted, a small embassy to further diplomacy with the other races. The STG has reported sightings of several large fleets of Morrigi vessels in the Terminus Systems. Independent sources report that several Spectres have been sighted in Morrigi space, though the Council currently denies having any operatives active in the Confederation._


	5. Extranet Forum Topic (Codex)

_As with my previous Extranet article, this conversation is an in-universe document, and all spelling/grammar errors are intentional. Unreliable narrator is also in full force on all sides._

* * *

**Hiver Military Strength: Citadel News Extranet Forum Topic**

BlackwatchBadass: I'm saying that without functional FTL, the Hivers aren't a serious military threat. Mobility is key for any battlefield, and without FTL, any Council race just needs to show up and start shooting from the edge of the system. By the time the Hivers get in range, there won't be any left to fight.

BlueSkye: You're selling the bugs short. There's a reason the humans an tarkasians don't mess with them.

STG103: I'm with Blackwatch on this. You keep saying the Hivers are this Rachni-esk super race, but I'm just not seeing it based off their tech level and the most recent declassified force estimates for them.

BlueSkye: Those were taken right before first contact, you can't claim those are remotely accurate. As for your long range bombardment theory, Hivers have some of the most advanced sublight drives in the known galaxy. It wouldn't take them that long to close the distance.

STG103: Try again, Blue. Even if we assume that the Hiver fleet can move at just under lightspeed, it would still take them five hours to reach the edge of the solar system. Considering the Council races' spinal guns fire once every two or three seconds and can destroy a Hiver dreadnought in a single shot, I would say the math is against you.

VarStompy: Frankly, I'm sick of this topic, but as a human, I figure it's my job to point out some facts you may be forgetting. First, the rounds from spinal guns don't pass lightspeed either. So it will take 5 hours for this sniper barage to hit, giving the Hivers plenty of time to dodge. Second, there are other celestial bodies in a solar system. If the Hivers use the other planets and asteroids in the system for cover, they don't even have to bother with dodging. And most importantly, what kind of gunner do you Council races have that can hit a 200 meter target all the way across a system? The only thing cross-system bombardment would be useful for would be attacking a planet, and considering the fact that Hivers build underground, it will take a long time before the Hivers really felt that kind of attack.

BlackwatchBadass: Oh? And you're saying you humans could do better than a multi-megaton per minute bombardment? There'd be nothing living on the face of the planet in under an hour. If Hivers are so tough, how did you do it?

VarStompy: It's not the firepower, its the precision. At that distance, you're just throwing rocks at the planet. The Hivers would eventually starve to death, but it would take ages, and they can instantly resupply from their gate. During the Human/Hiver conflict, we used assault shuttles to drop guided nuclear weapons directly into the Hiver complexes, and followed that up with nerve gas and power armored marines to finish clearing out the complexes.

BlueSkye: Thank you. This is exactly the point I was trying to make. What Hivers lack in offensive capabilities they more than make up for with pure tenacity.

STG103: Okay, fine, lets assume the Hivers would make it to the battle. But what about during the battle? During the Human and Turian War, the humans had to use their node drives to jump in behind the turian ships, where they couldn't fight back. I don't see the Hivers being able to pull that trick off.

VarStompy: 'Had to' is a strong phrase. It made sense, and considering the small force size humanity had available, conventional warfare would definitely have been a mistake. But we could have done it on conventional drives, we just would have suffered more losses. The Hivers can take those losses. In addition, there is one weakness of your spinal guns that you're overlooking: they're overpowered. Even a broadside gun will go right through most Orion ships. But Orion ships, and especially Hiver ships, are designed in sections. You can blow the engines off or midsection off a Hiver ship and it will keep fighting until you finally crush it for real.

Armali84: I can back up Stompy about the overkill thing. I work in Citadel Control, so I get to do a lot of ship-watching. The newest Turian and Salarian ships all have smaller turreted cannons on them, presumably to try and solve that problem.

BlackwatchBadass: Yeah, but Hiver ships mostly just use missile and ballistic weaponry. That kind of thing is pretty much useless against Citadel barriers and point defense grids.

TheCrownPrince: Okay, I'm going to put an end to this, as both a Hiver and a moderator. This kind of situation is a real combat scenario that both the Council and Hiver opfors have been working on, so if they're having trouble figuring out who would win, you certainly won't be able to. The original question, regarding current Hiver military strength in comparison to that of the Council races, can be quickly answered. The Hiver Imperium has officially declared the maximum allowed number of dreadnought strength vessels, and a number of cruiser and frigate strength vessels roughly equal to that of the Asari Republics. This obviously does not include any 'off the books' ships we or the asari may possess. As for Blackwatch's comment about the uselessness of Hiver weapons against barriers, I can respond with just one word: Lancers.


	6. Justice (Story)

_I'm back, and it's Tarka time! Tarka language is very confusing, so sorry if I got the grammar wrong in certain areas. I did some research, and think I have it down though. _

_It is also important to note for the purposes of this story that Saal Var'Tars is not an example of a typical Changed male. He is a seasoned combat veteran, and is to normal Tarka what a Battle Master is to normal Krogan. A fairer match would be a normal Changed male verses an Asari commando. But that's boring, and I can't think of a good reason for a commando unit to take on the Spears that wouldn't be a borderline act of war._

* * *

"Stand aside. My Code will not allow me to yield on this issue."

"Just wait, Stumpy. I'm no happier with this than you are," Saal Var'Tars Law grumbled, glaring down at the small blue figure in gold and red before him. The wind howled around the entrance bridge of the skyscraper they stood on, making him feel the chill even through his armor. Angrily, he pawed at the cyber communicator built into his wrist. "Control, our new guest is getting impatient, as am I. Did our client agree to the additional charge or not?"

As Var'Tars spoke, the asari before him quietly pulled out a large pistol and waved her omnitool over it. A panel slid out, revealing a glowing green box. The alien removed the box and slotted in another, this one a brilliant chrome, before sliding the panel shut again.

"I will not ask again, Tarkasian. Give me my prey, or I will go through you to get to her." The asari pointedly did not holster her weapon. The four unchanged males around Var'Tars tightened their grips on their rifles, but did not quite flinch. "Should you yield, I, Justicar Phora, solemnly swear no harm will come to you. But should you defend that criminal, I swear just as solemnly that neither you nor your men will live to see another sunset."

"Oh, now I'm almost considering renewing the contract for free, just to see you try and back that up," Var'Tars replied with a harsh laugh, pulling out his Vac Hammer and tossing it once or twice in the air experimentally. "I hear you Justicars are supposed to be something else. Be nice to get a challenge for once."

"Saal, our client has agreed to the additional protection fee," a female voice announced through Var'Tars' communicator. "You are free to take care of our guest."

Before the voice had even finished speaking, Phora's gun snapped up, shooting two of Var'Tars' men in their unarmored heads before unleashing a biotic blast that hurled Var'Tars back almost eight feet. The other two Tarka opened fire with their rifles, but Phora sheathed herself in a blue biotic glow and jumped backward, leaping almost ten feet into the air to land gently behind a nearby hover car.

Gesturing with one hand, she lifted one of the Tarka and the crates he had been hiding behind up into the air and contemptuously flicked them over the edge of the skyscraper's bridge, letting him plummet to his death.

The last male threw a grenade over the edge of the car, but Phora caught it in midair with her biotics, firing it back at him with ballistic velocities. It exploded instantly on impact, reducing the hapless soldier to drifting red mist. Emerging from cover, Phora turned to face her last opponent, just in time to catch Var'Tars' thrown Vac Hammer in the middle of her chest.

"Not bad," Tars admitted, swatting aside several nearby crates with one huge fist as he lumbered forward. "But not good enough, Justicar."

"You should have stood aside, mercenary, " Phora wheezed, slowly rising to her feet and clutching at her side in pain. Then she straighted, pointing her pistol unerringly at the Saal's head. "Only a fool throws away her only weapon."

"Who said anything about throwing away a weapon?"Var'Tars flexed his hand, and his Vac Hammer shot back into his grasp instantly. He smiled toothily. "We're just getting started, Stumpy."

Var'Tars charged forward, just as Phora fired five shots at his head. But this time, Var'Tars' armored hand was already up, blocking the bullets. The armor-piercing rounds tore into the living steel with ease, but even at such great speeds, the bullets were not large enough to cut through completely, and with his adrenaline up, the Changed male barely felt the pain.

Phora flashed to the side in a glowing blue blur, unleashing a biotic shove that would send Tars hurtling off the bridge. But with agility she would never have expected from something so large, the Tarka rolled, dodging the shove and swinging his hammer in a vicious backhand that would reduce the Asari's chest to mush.

With a grimace, she sent biotic power rushing and caught the hammer with her bare hand, biotic field blazing as she strained against the Tarka's muscles. With her free hand, she raised her pistol to shoot Var'Tars in the back of the head, only to see his muscular tail a split second before it slammed into her face, sending her flying.

She hit the side of another nearby car with enough force to shatter the windows and dent the metal, only her reinforced Justicar armor preventing her from being smashed to paste by the impact. Her pistol had landed several yards away, and Var'Tars charged again, raising his hammer to finish her for good.

As Var'Tars smashed forward like a juggernaut, he saw the asari slap something on the car behind her before flipping backward with the grace and speed only a master biotic could manage. He had just enough time to wonder what she had been doing when the car exploded in his face.

"Impressive," Phora remarked, walking calmly toward her lost weapon as Var'Tars started to pick himself up, blood flowing from numerous wounds. "Nothing but a Krogan would have survived a point-blank blast like that. But this battle is over."

"Not until I say it is!" Var'Tars howled, leaping forward to tackle the Justicar to the ground, smashing the pavement beneath them to powder as he pinned her under his bulk. "Any last words, Stumpy?"

"Yes. Find peace in the embrace of the Goddess," Phora answered calmly, and Var'Tars suddenly noticed the pistol she held under his chin. She fired six times directly into his face, and the hulking Tarka finally slumped, collapsing lifelessly on top of her.

Wearily, the Justicar pushed the dead Tarka off her with the help of her biotics, climbing to her feet. She surveyed with battle with a tired expression, holding her injured ribs with her free hand while she holstered her pistol and reached for her medigel. In that instant, a blazing column of light slice into her back, burning through her armor to blast out the other side of her chest. Phora dropped like a stone, smoke rising from the hole burned through her chest.

"They always focus on the males," a dark-clad figure remarked from where she crouched in hiding at the other end of the bridge, lowering her rifle and pulling down the mask covering her face. "Control, this is Ranger Sara. Tell the humans their new laser rifle works as advertised."

Walking over to the fallen Justicar, she checked the Asari's vitals and noticed with some surprise that she was still alive, if only just.

"Call the local police as well. Tell them Justicar Phora attacked us, and we were force to shoot her in self-defense. She is alive, but might not be that way for long," Sara smiled to herself. "Then contact our client and tell her she might want to spring for another squad or two of Spears for when that Justicar gets out of the hospital…"

_One month later, Justicar Phora released herself from the hospital over the protests of the staff. The next day, a local Asari business woman, accused by many of being the head of the ruthless smuggling ring Blood Moon, was found dead, her torso crushed by a heavy impact. It was also noted by investigators that several weeks prior the business woman had terminated her contract with the mercenary organization Silver Spears in favor of a contract with Eclipse. The Eclipse security detail was found on the scene, slaughtered in their entirety. Justicar Phora departed the system before she could be questioned about the incident. _


	7. The Citadel Truce (Codex)

_EDIT: This chapter has been reworked from its original version to better reflect the later developments of the story. We apologize for the inconvenience. _

_Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Want me to stop mucking about and just get back to the bits with the lasers? Leave a review! _

* * *

**Codex: The Citadel Truce**

Following the Human/Turian War, ambassadors from all four races in the Orion Alliance were invited to the Citadel to discuss a cessation of hostilities. The result of these peace talks was the Citadel Truce. Despite the name, the Citadel Truce only deals with the existing hostilities in a peripheral capacity, forcing the Turian Hierarchy to pay reparations to SolForce for the destruction of Shanxi and effectively ending the conflict.

The primary purpose of the Citadel Truce was to outline the conditions under which the races of the Orion Alliance would join the Council. SolForce and the Hiver Imperium were largely against the idea of joining the Citadel, especially objecting to the idea of Spectres and dreadnought limitation, while the Tarkasian Empire and Liir supported joining the Council. Following several days of deliberation, a compromise was reached. While members of several races have since voiced their unhappiness with the final terms of the Citadel Truce it has not been altered since its creation, despite pressure from SolForce, the Turian Hierarchy, and the Hiver Imperium.

Under the stipulations set forth by the Citadel Truce, SolForce, the Hiver Imperium, the Tarkasian Empire, and the Liir were all recognized as Associate Members of the Citadel Council. They were given all the rights and privileges of that status, including the ability to petition for Council membership, something all Orion races save the Liir would do within two decades of the Truce's signature.

The Orion races were fully bound by all Citadel Conventions, save for one. The small size of the Orion races' ships put even their largest dreadnoughts easily under the limitations of the Treaty of Farixen. Due to the power of the weapons mounted in these ships, the Council amended the treaty to classify dreadnoughts by combined weapon yield, not by ship length. This caused understandable protest from the Orion races, as all four races currently had more dreadnoughts deployed than they would be allowed under the revised treaty.

In light of the distrust brought on by the Human/Turian War and the size of the existing Orion fleets, the Council agreed to allow the Orion races an exception to the treaty. Instead of being limited to one dreadnought for every three a Council species possessed, Orion races would be limited to two for every three, effectively doubling the amount of dreadnoughts they could have. SolForce still protested this limitation, but the Council refused to compromise further and SolForce eventually agreed to the compromise.

The existence and power of Spectres was also a major sticking point, one the Council was unwilling to let slide. The Orion races were reluctant to allow what they felt were agents of a alien nations free access and unlimited authority in their domains, while the Council insisted that Spectre authority be recognized to ensure that the Orion races complied with the new laws they would be subject to. In the end, another compromise was reached. The Orion races agreed to recognize Spectre authority, provided that the Council immediately begin recruiting Spectres from all four Orion races. A final stipulation, one heavily protested by the Turian Hierarchy, stated that at least twelve candidates, three from each Orion nation, must be confirmed as Spectres with a year. The Hierarchy felt that mandatory inclusion of a certain number of Spectre candidates would force them to accept applicants that would not normally meet their strict selection criteria, but their concerns were overruled and would later prove unfounded. All twelve Orion Spectres performed to satisfaction, and several are still in service.

The final stipulation, suggested by both parties, was that no race would permitted to use the FTL method of any other race. Until their discovery of the races in the Orion Arm, the Council was unaware that alternative FTL methods existed, while the Orion races had dealt with alternative FTL methods for many years and had dozens of safeguards put in place around their drive technology to prevent its theft by other races. Mass Effect drives were still twice as fast as the fastest existing Orion drive system, and their ubiquity meant it would not be hard for Orion races to acquire a working example to copy. The Council was especially leery of the Hiver Imperium gaining access to mass effect drive technology, as the only restriction on their expansion was that they lacked FTL drives. In turn the Orion races did not want to risk the Council races gaining access to any of their drive technology, as the need for Council vessels to discharge their drive cores was instramental to the Orion Alliance's defense plan at the time. The Hiver Imperium protested this restriction, as this would effectively make it illegal for them to utilize any known method of FTL, but under heavy political pressure from Humanity and the Tarkasians, they eventually backed down.

In the years following the signature of the treaty, there have been several attempts by different races to alter its terms. SolForce has made several petitions to increase the amount of dreadnoughts allowed, and the Hiver Imperium has made no secret of its desire for alternate FTL methods. On the Council side, the Turian Hierarchy, with the support of the Vol Protectorate and several other Associate Member races, has made several petitions to the Council in an attempt to limit the number of dreadnoughts available to Orion species, include carriers in dreadnought yield calculations, and include a new 'super-dreadnought' class of vessel to counter the alleged 'Leviathans' under construction by Orion races. The Council has currently denied all attempts to amend the treaty.


	8. Escape (Story)

_So its been a little while since I posted a new chapter. I have many excuses, but the gist is that life is a pain and I don't get paid to write this thing, more's the pity. _

_My veteran readers are probably looking around and wondering who the heck gutted this story, since the mass of Codex I had weighing things down at the beginning has been pulled in favor of an even Story/Codex ratio. I decided it was just turning too many readers off, so I yanked it. It will all be edited and reposted eventually, but only after I have enough story written to go with it. _

_So here is the end of the Human/Turian War, in all its glory. Writing space battles is actually quite hard to make exciting without jumping into omniscient narrator mode and just describing the ships going by. Hopefully I succeeded. Similarly, keeping the factions balanced was a pain, and I'm quite positive that I have offended both SotS and Mass Effect fans equally with this one._

_Special thanks go out to Angela Kip, my beta reader, for helping me make this chapter not totally suck. Thanks also to Achronus for consulting on SotS tactics and weapons. _

* * *

"Five minutes until we reach the relay, Admiral Turrinus."

"Thank you," he replied from where he stood staring broodingly at the tactical map. "Begin charging our point defense systems, and open a channel to the rest of the fleet."

"Channel open," his executive officer, a promising young officer named Horatius, replied obediently.

"Men, we are only a few minutes out from the relay now. I understand that this campaign has been a long one, and fraught with disaster," the Admiral began, standing up straighter automatically as he began addressing his men. "Our foes have been clever and tenacious. They have surprised us with strange technology at every turn and hounded us in every system we explored. But I take comfort in the fact that no matter how dark the hour, you have never failed to live up to my expectations of you."

"I know that having to scuttle the _Vigilant_, the _Unbreakable_, and the _Valorous_ was difficult. I know that retreating in the face of the enemy is even more so. But you have stood firm through it all like true Turian soldiers, and for that, I am proud of you."

"We now face the final hurdle. The enemy has certainly left more surprises for us to find, but we will persevere like we always have. Stay true to yourselves, to your comrades, and to your race, and I have no doubt we will be victorious. And when we return, and return we shall, it will be with a the full might of the Council on our side to crush these aliens. You know your duty. Admiral Turrinus out."

"Admiral, private channel coming in from the _Paragon_," Horatius called almost as soon as Turrinus had closed the communication.

"That will be Captain Salvia," the admiral remarked with a weary smile. He and Salvia had quite a bit of history, and had served together on many occasions. They were even friends, though both were careful to make sure their friendship did not interfere with their duties. "Put her through."

"You always did like your speeches," the female captain's voice said, distorted slightly through the speakers. "Now what are we really heading into?"

"A trap," he answered gravely, leaning over the command rail and folding his hands together in front of his face. "The relay is a bottleneck, and the enemy knows it. They laid a trap for our reenforcements, and I have no doubt they have something similar planned for us now."

"Mines won't be nearly as effect when we aren't just coming out of a Relay jump," Salvia pointed out. "They won't get us the same way again."

"Since when have they ever bothered with the same trick twice? First it was that damn FTL of theirs, then UV lasers, beam weapons, and energy torpedoes! In ships smaller than our frigates! Make no mistake, Salvia, they are going to make us bleed for that relay somehow. I just haven't figured out how yet."

"Well, you should be just fine either way in the _Fidelis_. They still haven't thrown anything at us that can take out a dreadnought. Cheer up. This damned campaign's almost over, one way or another. _Paragon_ out."

The channel closed, and Turrinus was left staring broodingly at tactical display before him, as though if he glared hard enough at it, it would reveal whatever strange trick the humans had planned for him. A small notification in the display began blinking, indicating that they were about to arrive.

"All ships, red alert," he commanded, straightening up again. "Give me a full sensor sweep as soon as we drop out of FTL, I want to know exactly what is out there."

No sooner had he spoken than the _Fidelis _slowed with a subtle jerk of deceleration. The bridge windows had closed their shutters some time ago, so the turian admiral was forced to wait for the sensors to finish their sweep of the area before he would know what he was facing.

"Spirits…" he gasped as the display instantly lit up with a huge cloud of red. "They beat us here. There must have been a Node line to this system that wasn't on the map!"

"Sensor contacts confirm this is the same fleet we encountered at Excalibur," Horatius confirmed from his station to Turrinus' left. "They have turned to face us and are advancing at interception speeds. Orders, Admiral?"

"Start firing the main guns at their larger ships, prioritize targets toward the flanks. It won't take long for them to move out of our bow arcs. Order every other cruiser on the edge of our formation to spin and give us dorsal and ventral coverage with their broadside guns. As soon as the enemy ships begin firing, let the frigates off their leash and tell them to engage at will. Ships with heavy beam weapons are still a priority target. Don't bother deploying fighters, we can't wait to collect them before the jump, and they'd just get mauled by the enemy's lasers."

"High energy fields have begun forming in front of the enemy ships to our front, Admiral. Pulling up an image now."

A two dimensional video of one of the larger enemy ships appeared, flanked by several of their smaller escort ships. Both the larger and smaller ships were projecting some type of barrier in a half-circle in front of them.

"So they do have barriers," Turrinus commented darkly. "Let's find out just how powerful they are. All ships, fire at will!"

Dozens of bow cannons spoke at once, but the massive salvo was almost completely ineffective, almost all the shots missing the smaller enemy ships. But the second volley followed swiftly after, followed by a third and a forth. Eventually the sheer volume of shells began to make a difference, and several of the larger enemy ships began to disappear from the display. The shielded ships were a different story, however.

"They're deflecting it!" his eyes widened in amazement as he watched one of the _Fidelis_' shots literally skip off the shields of a ship small enough to easily land on the dreadnought's hull. "How is that even possible?"

"Sensors report some kind of condensed particle field projected from the prows of the larger ships. The smaller ships appear to mount them in the middle of the ship, probably due to the device's size," Horatius announced, glancing up from the numerous datafeeds pouring into his terminal. "It only covers the forward section of the enemy ships, however."

"For all the good that does us, we'll never get our cruisers to their rear," Turrinus snarled before glaring down at the video feed again. "Doesn't look like it is infallible, though."

A round appeared to have penetrated the cruiser's shield, and the shot had literally smashed the small ship to splinters, shattered bits of armor and hull drifting away from the remains of the ring-shaped engine section.

"The enemy has reached missile range, Admiral," Horatius stated, though Turrinus could obviously see the small yellow icons of enemy missiles appearing and flying toward their fleet. "Sensors indicate these missiles are somewhat larger than the ones used in previous engagements."

"Take them out before they can get close," he ordered before returning to watch the enemy ships approaching their flanks. "I don't want whatever new surprise they have in those getting anywhere close to our ships."

The laser point defense grids made short work of the handful of missiles, though he noticed the enemy continued firing even though not a single missile made it even closer than a kilometer to their ships.

"Scan where those missiles were destroyed," Turrinus commanded suddenly as he noticed a pattern in the missile barrage. "Something is wrong. It's almost as though they don't care if the missiles are shot down."

"Sensors report nothing abnormal, though there is a lot of fine debris distorting the returns," Horatius replied quickly, sifting through his datafeeds. "Enemy ships should be entering beam range in just a few moments."

"Order the frigates to break off an engage. Point defense turrets should focus on the beam and torpedo equipped smaller ships, use the broadsides against the larger ones."

The display promptly exploded in a storm of colors as the enemy ships opened fire with their powerful forward beam weapons and the turians returned the favor with their broadside guns and point defense lasers.

The enemy ships operated with a precision Turrinus could almost admire, focusing all their shots on a specific spot of a specific ship before moving on to a new target. The ones near the flanks actually halted their forward thrusts, firing thrusters to spin themselves sideways and drift past, raking the turian cruisers with their full firepower.

"The _Gladius_ and _Benevolent _are both reporting heavy damage, Admiral. Their spinal guns are out, and the _Gladius_ is reporting damage to its broadsides as well. Several other ships are also reporting damage, and several have reported that their GARDIAN lasers have been disabled."

"As we expected, the lasers are our most effect way of targeting their smaller ships," the admiral told the empty air, glowering down at the display again. His fleet had probably already inflicted more damage to the enemy in just a few minutes than they had in the entire rest of the campaign combined, but now it was the aliens' turn, and they were making the most of it.

The turian frigates were darting through the enemy formations, but they had neither the firepower to take out the larger ships in one shot nor the agility to bring their spinal weapons against the smaller ones. They didn't have enough GARDIANs to be a serious threat against the alien formations either, not with the way even the smaller alien ships simply sprayed out UV laser fire in all directions.

"Admiral, our forward ships are reporting serious corrosion on their prows!" Horatius announced with alarm in his voice. "It's already breeched the hull of the _Vengeful _in three places!"

"What? How did that miss our inspections?"

"It didn't, no ships reported any kind of abnormal corrosion. It must be artificial, sir. Judging from the spread and the new damage reports I'm getting in, it looks like some kind of nanite attack."

"Nanites?" Turrinus asked, before it dawned on him. "The missiles! We didn't destroy them, they detonated themselves, right where we would fly into them."

"Sir, the _Vengeful_ just reported a bulkhead collapse. They've lost almost their entire forward section, including the spinal gun."

"Damn! Track those missiles! Don't let any of our ships get within a kilometer of the nanite clouds. Time to relay?"

"Two minutes before the first ships can start making the jump. Sir, to avoid the clouds, we'll have to break formation."

"I know, Horatius." The admiral sighed and straightened to his full height. "Our fleet is getting mauled out there. We just have to say alive for two more minutes. The enemy already has us right where they want us. At this point, letting the enemy inside our formation is preferable to sending the entire fleet blindly into those nanite clouds."

Horatius merely nodded and returned to his screen. Turrinus watched gravely as the fleet began to slowly split around the areas highlighted as nanite clouds. As they had feared, the enemy pounced almost immediately, their smaller ship weaving through the larger turian cruisers to settle in areas with the least weapon coverage. Their small laser weapons began tearing into the turian armor, the sheer volume of fire more than making up for their lower yield.

Seconds ticked passed in silence as the lights of the tactical display flickered and several more enemy contacts vanished, destroyed by lucky broadsides or repeated laser hits. The fleet was close to the relay now, but the enemy ships were swarming like wasps, stabbing into the turian ships viciously with their beams and lasers.

"Several cruisers are reporting damage to their engines," Horatius announced suddenly, breaking the heavy blanket of silence. "They are being forced to reduce speed."

"How many ships?"

"Four, no, the _Paragon_ just reported damage as well, so that makes five," the executive officer quickly replied. "It appears the enemy has begun specifically targeting our engines to prevent our retreat."

"We'd have no chance of making a relay jump just using inertia," Turrinus agreed with a grim expression. "Redeploy the frigates, have them try and keep the enemy off our rear."

With a muted electronic *blip*, one of the green cruiser icons vanished from the display, the small red icons surrounding it scattering to focus on new targets.

"Which ship did we lose?" the admiral asked with weary resignation.

"The _Benevolent_, sir. The drive core was hit by one of their beam cruisers. All hands lost."

"They won't be the last," he stated flatly. "Slow our advance to try and protect the damaged ships. How long until our forward ships reach the relay?"

"30 seconds before they can start plotting their jumps."

"Tell them not to worry about precision, anywhere that isn't here will be fine."

"Aye, admiral," Horatius replied, just as two more electronic chimes chorused. "The _Vengeful_ and _Gladius_, admiral. Another drive core detonation, and the _Vengeful_\- sir, new contacts have appeared! They were hiding behind the relay!"

A video image appeared in the display, showing a half-dozen new ships, all sporting the same large ring drives as the other alien ships. These were must larger than anything they had previously encountered, three times the size of the largest enemy ships. They appeared to be even more packed with firepower, beam mounts and large turrets fixed to almost every surface. Two even mounted the deflection shields, though the others appeared to be equally well equipped, either with weapons or other strange technology.

"Dreadnoughts," Turrinus guessed as the new contacts began moving into firing position near the relay. "They hid to keep us from targeting them with our spinal guns at the beginning of the battle."

"I'm picking up a lot of communications traffic from the rear-most ship. It appears to be a command ship of some type."

"Prioritize it as a primary target. If anything that still has a spinal gun can shoot at it, I want them shooting!"

The display began to chime again as the first alien dreadnoughts entered firing range, opening up with their massive arsenals on the lead Turian ships. Three cruisers died in moments as their weakened hulls gave out under the assault. The dreadnoughts spun on the spot, already tracking new targets.

The video feed of the enemy flagship showed several spinal rounds flashing past, but even with its larger size, it was still a small target, and spinal weaponry was very difficult to use at such close range. The two or three shots that did hit splashed harmlessly off its shield. One round finally slipped through and smashed into the ship's side, but unlike the smaller cruisers, this one appeared to be significantly more durable. The damage was extensive, but the ship remained intact.

"We can't keep this up," he realized as another cruiser disappeared from the display. "If we slow, the dreadnoughts will eat us alive. We have to break through."

"Sir?" Horatius asked, confused.

"Order all ships to full speed, make for the relay. Then cut the _Fidelis_' engines. Any ship that can't make the relay in under two minutes should also cut engines."

"Admiral, I don't understand."

"The _Fidelis_ is obviously our flagship, and can handle a lot more fire than the cruisers, especially our more damaged ones. We're staying behind to hold them off. Anything they fire at us is a shot that won't be fired at our cruisers."

"…as you command, Admiral."

"Given the circumstances, I think you can call me Turrinus," the admiral said with a grin. He felt strange, like a great weight had been lifted from his shoulders. "Now bring our spinal gun to bear on that flagship. If we're going down, I plan on bringing as much company with us as I can."

"Aye si-Turrinus," Horatius agreed, flashing him a grim smile. "_Paragon _is hailing us."

"Go ahead," the admiral ordered casually as he watched the fleet begin to split, the undamaged ships leaping ahead toward the relay while the more damaged ones remained behind. This new tactic seemed to confuse the aliens for a moment, before they quickly regrouped and began focusing on the escaping ships, largely ignoring the wounded ones.

"Admiral, with all due respect, have you gone insane? Get out of here!" Salvia yelled in frustration, though there was a great deal of static in the background. "Your ship is fine!"

"It's also the only thing that can do enough damage to get the enemy fleet's attention and keep it. My decision is final, Salvia," he explained, nodding in satisfaction as he felt the spinal gun begin to fire beneath him and watched the shots begin zipping past the alien flagship. "Take the _Paragon_ and go. We'll cover your retreat."

"Not going to happen," Salvia replied with resignation in her voice. "My engines are shot. The engineers say anything more than twenty five percent thrust and we'll probably blow the whole back end of the ship off."

"I guess this is it then."

"I guess so. It was a pleasure serving with you, Admiral."

"The pleasure was mine, Captain. See you on the other side."

"Ha. I'll save you a seat."

The connection cut out, and the bridge went quiet again. On the display, Turrinus watched grimly as a lucky shot finally got through the deflector, smashing the damaged dreadnought cleanly in half. It was too late to make any kind of difference, however. Another cruiser was dropping back from the escape formation, its entire stern shredded by laser fire.

"Patch me in to all the ships that will be staying behind," he commanded, glaring down at the swarming red lights on the tactical display.

"It's done," Horatius said a moment later, eyes still flashing quickly over the endless streams of data that crossed his screen.

"There is not much time, so I will make this short. For any of this fleet to have a chance, some of us must be sacrificed. We are that sacrifice," Turrinus began, addressing the air before him with his chin held high. "I am reminded of an old turian saying that is often scoffed at by salarians and asari. 'Only in death does duty end.' We are not dead yet. We will fulfill our duty and protect our comrades with our very lives."

"Launch every spaceworthy craft in every hanger on every ship. Hammer them with shells until the guns run dry. Fire the GARDIANs until they melt. When your ammo has run dry and your lasers are slag, charge your barriers and ram them!"

"Never forget, we are the Seventh Fleet! We will not stop fighting while we still have breath in our bodies! We will make sure neither our comrades nor our foes ever forget this day. This is the day we prove what we are really made of! All ships, engage at will! It's time to show these aliens how a turian dies."

_Almost a third of the Seventh fleet did not make it back through Relay 317. Of the ships that escaped, over half had to be placed in dry-dock for several months to repair the extensive damage they received. Several ships were so heavily damaged that they could not be repaired. SolForce claims their casualty count for the battle was approximately forty percent of the defense fleet, with ten percent of the remaining ships requiring extensive repairs. Included in those numbers were four of its six dreadnoughts, as well as a significant portion of its cruiser compliment. _


	9. Humanity (Codex)

_The one is mostly for those coming from the Mass Effect side, who are probably royally confused by all this nonsense. Don't worry, the other SotS races will be coming soon, which should help with your confusion. As usual, I try to respond to all criticism, and all my chapters are open for rewriting if you can convince me I made a mistake somewhere, so if you have a problem with anything, please let me know. Other than that, enjoy!_

_*Edited to fit the official Codex format and include more information._

* * *

_"Offer one hand and arm the other. Not a bad way to handle foreign policy, human."_

-Turian Hierarchy Ambassador Orinia

_ "Life on the frontier is hard, but life on Earth was hell."_  
-Anonymous Human Settler, 2428 HCE

**Humanity**

Humanity is a very recent addition to the galactic scene and, discounting the Zuul, is the youngest of the races in the Orion Arm. They also have the most violent history of any race save the Krogan. Humanity first discovered FTL in 2069 Citadel Common Era (2393 Human Common Era) and advanced rapidly in the next century to become one of the dominant powers of the Orion Arm.

**Biology**

Humans are a species of sentient, terrestrial mammals based off levo-amino acids. Humans are a highly adaptable species that can thrive in a wide variety of environments, but prefer temperatures, gravities, and atmosphere densities similar to their home world. As such, Human colonies are often subjected to a great deal of terraforming, and the first waves of Human colonists often undergo genetic treatments to make them more comfortable until their new home can be modified.

The evolution of Humanity appears to have had several conflicting stages. Their bipedal, erect stance combined with locking knee and hip structures suggest they evolved in arid, hot grasslands, but their relatively small amount of hair and the large amounts of subcutaneous fat suggest that they experienced a 'water' phase at some point in their ancient past. As a mammalian species, Humans give birth to live young. Multiple births are somewhat unusual, but are not unheard of. A Human female may give birth several times throughout her life, but the gestation and birthing of infants is a dangerous and taxing process that can be lethal without proper medical care. Humans display a great deal of personal attachment to their children, more than any species besides the Asari.

Adult Humans stand between 110 centimeters and 220 centimeters, with a mass between 50 and 175 kilograms. All Humans have a fine layer of hair over most of their bodies and patch of thicker hair located on their heads. Quarians are the only other known species of sentients with this trait. There are several superficial pigmentation differences found among Humans, similar to those found in Asari. In primitive times, these were used to create political divides based on 'race', but the coloration represents no appreciable genetic variance and Humanity has long-since abandoned these ideas.

Humans have two sexes: male and female. Though there are some morphological differences between the two genders, slightly more than those found among Salarians, these differences are usually very small. In addition, the behavioral differences of modern Humans genders are so slight that they are almost non-existent. The similarities between male and female humans are great enough that many races (especially those of the Orion Arm, where sexual dimorphism is more extreme) have difficulty telling the two genders apart.

Humanity is the physically weakest species to emerge from the Orion Arm. They are smaller than any Orion race save Zuul males, standing about as tall as the average Asari. They lack any form of natural weaponry, and have strength equal to a Turian of equivalent fitness. They are not as flexible as an Asari, but are slightly stronger. Despite this, Humans have legendary amounts of endurance and may remain active for much longer than most other species.

Humans have eyesight roughly commensurate with the galactic average, with binocular vision suggesting they evolved as a predator species. Human hearing is somewhat more acute than most, and many Humans are sensitive to sounds in the very high and very low parts of their range. The average Human's sense of smell is slightly below average. Humans are omnivores and prefer a diverse diet, but economic and practical concerns usually relegate most Humans to vegetarian meals.

Humanity is a psychic-recessive species.

**History**

Approximately four hundred years ago, Humanity's homeworld of Earth (also known as Terra) began a limited ecosystem collapse due to over-harvesting of existing resources and the pollutants created by Humanity's various primitive methods of power generation. This collapse continued for over a century, melting both of Earth's polar regions and flooding hundreds of major metropolitan zones. Millions of species were rendered extinct, and billions of humans were left dead or destitute. This period of climate change is typically known to Humans as 'The Thaw'. The lack of resources coupled with a surplus of population without homes or livelihoods created great national tension, leading to several major wars. This period of conflict, known as the Conflagration, lasted another century and involved several limited nuclear exchanges. In the end, the conflicts ceased largely due to the fact that no faction had the population or resources to continue fighting.

Between the ecological damage and the numerous wars, approximately 70% of the human population of the planet had been killed in the Thaw and Conflagration. The hundreds of Human nations that existed in the 20 and 21st Human centuries reformed into a eight hegemonies known as the 'Consortia'. Following the massive losses of the Conflagration, the Consortia were forced to take despirate measures to ensure Humanity's survival. Throughout much of the 23rd, 24th, and 25th centuries, the Human Consortia excised massive levels of control over all aspects of life on Earth, especially limiting consumption of resources and energy, non-sustainable industry, Human reproduction, travel, and freedom of information. These restrictions would eventually be reduced as Humans began leaving Earth, but life on the Human homeworld still involves large amounts of governmental control.

In the next century, Humanity repopulated their planet and rebuilt their destroyed infrastructure. The new Consortia governments were more willing to negotiate their problems in light of their previous conflicts, and strife was limited to riots and civil disobedience sparked by the strict governmental controls. It was during this period of reconstruction that the Node Drive was discovered by legendary Human hero Blasky Yao-Hsiang. Unfortunately, a miscalculation during the first test of the Node Drive cost Blasky Yao-Hsiang his life, but he was able to transmit his findings before he perished. Realizing the implications of this project, the Consortia governments agreed to begin developing FTL vessels for exploration and colonization. This project was assigned to SolForce, then a minor multi-national organization tasked with monitoring the Sol system and maintaining Humanity's limited number of satellites. Humanity's first interstellar colony ship, the _Nova Maria_, was launched in 2407 and immediately met with disaster.

Hiver Princess Obsidian Crown, the notorious war criminal responsible for starting the Hiver Interregnum, arrived in the Sol system on the exact day of the _Nova Maria_'s launch. Obsidian Crown's Nesting Fleet had been forced from Hiver space centuries earlier by Princess Radiant Frost, and was desperately in need of a safe harbor to rebuild its numbers for another bid at the Hiver throne. Earth was close enough to Hiver climate and atmospheric requirements for her purposes. It is unknown why she did not attempt to respond to any of the Human attempts at communication, but from what is known of her personality, Obsidian Crown likely did not think the opinions of such a militarily weak species were relevant.

The Hiver fleet opened fire almost instantly, obliterating the _Nova Maria_ and Earth's orbital defenses in minutes. Obsidian Crown's fleet maintained orbital supremacy for over a day, bombing the planet with impunity and annihilating much of the Han and Australarctic Consortia. Humanity was saved only by the quick thinking of Ashilde Falke. Falke was the Co-Director of SolForce, sharing the Directorate with Solomon Blasky. The older brother of Yao-Hsiang, Solomon was the mastermind behind the _Nova Maria_ and had the misfortune of being on the ship when it was destroyed. Her partner dead, Ashilde Falke assumed full control of SolForce and immediately set about reactivating Earth's ancient stockpiles of nuclear ordinance. After thirty-six hours of bombardment, SolForce was able to reactivate Humanity's arsenal and fired every single weapon at once into the Hiver fleet. Three thousand fission and fusion weapons were launched, destroying all of Obsidian Crown's escort ships and critically damaging her dreadnought. The Hiver princess fled the system and was eventually slain four years later in the Battle of Mjolnir. Obsidian Crown's attack would eventually become known as the Hiver Incursion, and was the opening salvo of the Hiver War.

Though Humanity was still reeling from the damage caused by the Incursion, Director Falke requested permission to begin constructing more colony ships to carry Humans as far from Earth as possible. Simultaneously, she requested permission to begin constructing FTL warships to strike back at the Hivers. Both requests were granted, and SolForce became the driving force for Human interstellar expansion. Under Falke Humanity spread rapidly, colonizing many worlds and attacking several Hiver colonies. In 2415, Human explorers also made simultaneous contact with the Liir and the Tarkasian Empire, another meeting that ended in violence as the Tarka fleet immediately destroyed the trespassing Human ships.

As skilled as Director Falke was at strategy and building infrastructure, her great failing was diplomacy. Described by many as xenophobic to the extreme, Falke did not prioritize research into Hiver culture or languages for many years. This would prove disastrous, as the vengeful Humans had no way of knowing that Obsidian Crown acted without the consent of her people. The many Hiver colonies that had been attacked were innocent of wrong doing and bore Humanity no ill-will. Unable to understand their pleas for mercy or attempts at surrender, the SolForce fleets exterminated Hiver settlements without hesitation. By the time the error was revealed, too much damage had been done to diplomatically resolve the crisis. Similarly, Falke's aloof attitude toward diplomacy with the Tarkasian Empire quickly led to the breakdown of communications between the Tarka and Humanity, leading to a declaration of war against them as well.

In the end, Falke's xenophobia would be her undoing. Unable to realize her insistence in continuing the war against the Hivers and Tarka would lead to Humanity's destruction, Falke's own commanders revolted against her. In 2434 Ground Force Legate Edward MacKenzie led a joint mission with the Tarkasian Empire to save the Hiver homeworld from destruction when a nearby star was about to go nova and render the Hiver core worlds unlivable. Following this mission, the Tarkasian Empire agreed to cease hostilities with SolForce and the Imperium. Despite the success of MacKenzie's mission providing the good-will Humanity needed to finally end the war with the Hivers, Falke refused to order a cease fire. In response, MacKenzie led a bloody coup against her in 2436. Falke was killed during the fighting, and MacKenzie assumed the mantle of Director. One of his first acts was to sign the General Armistice ending the war with the Hivers.

MacKenzie's reign was not destined to be a peaceful one. A joint operation in 2438 involving Human, Tarka, Liir, and Hiver operatives revealed the existence of the Zuul, who immediately began attacking all four stellar nations with vicious abandon. The Zuul Wars raged for twenty four years, interrupted only by the Via Demasco Rebellion in 2455 and the Human/Turian War in 2457. It was MacKenzie's strong connection with the other Orion races that allowed him to craft the temporary alliance that united the Orion Arm against the Turian invaders, even if this alliance was destined to be brief. Director MacKenzie was also responsible for negotiating SolForce's entrance to the Council. He willingly stepped down as Director in 2483 due to his advancing age, and died peacefully two years later.

MacKenzie was succeeded by Director Hannibal Freeborne. A former Freeholder and hero of the Zuul Wars, Freeborne has made several steps to increase the amount of personal freedoms allowed to SolForce citizens and to support the rights of independent worlds. Despite this, many have accused Freeborne's policies of being too short-sighted, as relations with the Council have continued to deteriorate throughout his reign.

**Culture**

Humans are a very young species, and as such tend toward 'out of the box' thinking. They tend to reject the traditions of other races, as they have very few surviving traditions of their own. This makes them very clever, but very difficult to deal with politically. Humans often seem either overly inquisitive or contrary to other races, constantly questioning others and loudly criticizing parts of any system they disagree with.

Due to the youth of Humanity, Human culture is extremely diverse and often paradoxical. SolForce presents the most universal selection of traditions and beliefs, though some of these are opposed even on its charter worlds. As SolForce controls all large-scale Human attempts at research, construction, diplomacy, and government, the popular idea exists that SolForce IS Humanity. While this is not actually true, most aliens do not have many opportunities to interact with individuals who are not in some way affiliated with SolForce.

Despite this diversification, some traits are generally true for almost all Human cultures. Much of Humanity's artistic and cultural history was destroyed in the Conflagration and Hiver Incursion. As such, artists and other creative individuals are highly prized in Human society. The idea of patents or other forms of intellectual property, especially for artistic works, have not existed in Human culture for over two centuries, and the belief that ideas should be horded for individual profit is violently opposed on almost all Human worlds. Many Humans are somewhat phobic of waste due to the rationing originally required on Earth and Humanity's early colonies. Non-renewable industries are tightly regulated and over-population is religiously avoided.

There are no strong physiological or psychological differences between Human genders, and both males and females may be commonly found in all walks of life. Human family units are generally conjugal, and consist only of parents and children. Parents and children usually have strong emotional connections, and Human parents remain highly involved in their children's lives until they become adults.

Humans have two names: a family name and a given name, though the details of these names can be confusing and often contradictory. Commonly the given name is presented first, followed by the family name, but this may be reversed for certain Human cultures and languages. Most Humans are patrilineal, with children adopting the family name of their father. This is not universal, with some children adopting their mother's name or a hybrid of both parents' names. Children that have no known biological family are assigned a 'common' family name, often based off the colony or culture they were born to. "Freeborne" is an example of such a name, indicating that an individual was born on a Freehold.

Due to SolForce's heavy militarization and its isolationist foreign policies, Humanity has a reputation for xenophobia that it does not fully deserve. While anti-alien sentiment is common among Humanity's core worlds, where opportunities for complex interaction with other races are limited, on major trade hubs and worlds with sizable alien populations this sentiment is much rarer.

Humans have no sub-species or notable genetic offshoots. In fact, Humans are the most genetically homogeneous Orion race, which leads to a much stronger incest taboo than that of other races.

**Economy**

Human economic interests are controlled by SolForce. SolForce sponsors traders to do business with neighboring nations, with their cargoes carefully planned and screened. This allows for increased regulation and makes crimes such as smuggling more difficult, but limits the profits available from trade. As such, SolForce's economy has stagnated slightly compared to the Tarkasian Empire and Hiver Imperium. The collective Human economy is still quite large, easily the equal to the Batarian Hegemony before its annihilation.

Most Human trade goods are professionally manufactured, rather than crafted by artisans. As such, Human items have acquired a reputation for being inexpensive and practical. Human corporations integrated quickly into Citadel markets, and many Human brands are quite popular among consumers. Bolough Dynamics remains a major manufacturer of armor and colony equipment, while the Pegasus Skycar was a joint venture between the Kriegsmids and Agusta Galactic corporations.

**Religion**

Humanity practices hundreds of different religions, though many of these are splinter sects of larger beliefs. The two Human belief systems most commonly encountered in Council space are Neo-Catholicism and Utilitarianism. Neo-Catholicism is a monothesic religion revolving around the life an ancient Human religious leader. Neo-Catholics believe this individual was a god in mortal form, and his eventual execution at the hands of local officials was a form of spiritual sacrifice on behalf of all Humanity. The Neo-Catholic church was heavily involved with SolForce during the Hiver/Tarka War, but they fell out of favor when Director MacKenzie assumed the Directorate. Director Freeborne has begun repairing relations with the Church, and Neo-Catholic missionaries are common sights in Council space. Neo-Catholicism is represented by a cross shaped icon known as the Crucifix.

Utilitarianism arose in the 22nd century (HCE) as a reaction to the Thaw. Believers dedicate themselves to pursuit of the 'Greatest Good', and believe that all acts of virtue or evil will eventually return to their perpetrator. As such, all Utilitarians are pacifists and believe that acts of war and violence can never serve a Greater Good. Members who join SolForce or cease to act for the Greater Good in some other way are considered 'Broken'. Utilitarians are great believers in charity, and often travel to hostile locales in an attempt to assist those in need. Utilitarian Sanctuaries are famous for offering aid to any beings that require require, regardless of race, creed, or financial ability, and Sanctuaries may be found on almost all major worlds in Council Space. Despite its historical conflict with SolForce, Utilitarianism remains the most popular religion among Humans, boasting several billion practitioners, and is also quite popular among Asari and Quarians. Utilitarianism is symbolized by the Tertium, three curved arrows forming a triangle.

**Government**

Humanity as a whole is governed by SolForce. Though several dozen independent Human worlds exist (collectively known as Freeholds), SolForce's charter worlds represent the majority of Humanity. Though it has many branches of service, SolForce remains a military organization at its core. As such, it is technically a junta. SolForce's Civil Service is in charge of building, maintaining, and administering civilian infrastructure, and it has control of almost every aspect of civilian governance. The governors of each SolForce charter colony are required to be members of the Civil Service branch.

Charter colonies are allowed to write their own charters, and SolForce maintains a very hands-off approach to such documents. Provided basic Human rights and laws are included, colonies are generally free to include or remove whatever legal stipulations they desire. This results in radically different styles of local government and is one of the reasons Human culture is so diverse. For example, the colony of Spica is a constitutional monarchy, while the colony of Mjolnir is a citizen's republic with requirements of military and public service not dissimilar to those found in the Turian Hierarchy. SolForce typically does not get involved with local politics. So long as certain standards of tax revenues, health, education, production, and communication are maintained, colonies may do as they wish.

Technically, SolForce is still beholden to the Consortia governments that created it. In reality, however, the Consortia wield almost no power off Earth, and could not enforce their will against the Director even if they wished to do so. Colonies and civilian stations with over one hundred thousand residents may elect a Civil Service member to represent them in Parliament, though this Parliament is another largely superficial body. The Director of SolForce may override Parliament's decisions at any time, should he or she choose to do so. A more relevant governing body is the Legate Council, a group of eight individuals each heading one of SolForce's different divisions. The Council's role is to advise the Director, and it holds no power beyond that which each individual Legate wields. New Directors are elected by a joint decision of the Legate Council when the previous Director steps down.

**Military**

SolForce is Humanity's military, and has been known to take action to defend even non-affiliated Human worlds. SolForce's military arm is divided into two sections: the Ground Forces and the Vacuum Forces (also known as the Vac Forces). SolForce Vac Forces consist entirely of Humanity's naval assets, as well as a sizable compliment of marines, engineers, pilots, and other specialists. SolForce Ground Forces are largely tasked with planetary and system defense. This gives them control over system defense assets like STL combat craft and orbital weapons platforms. The Sol Force Guards are Humanity's reserve force that deals primarily with peacekeeping, disaster response, and other local issues, and are considered part of the SolForce Ground Forces.

SolForce naval doctrine revolves around the usage of large ships in greater numbers. Human dreadnoughts typically focus on powerful armaments over projection or enhanced maneuverability. Due to their focus on large ships, SolForce has been the most vocal opponent of the Treat of Farixen. To overcome the limits of the treaty, SolForce has begun construction on super-dreadnought vessels known as leviathans. As the Treaty specifies the minimum allowed firepower for a dreadnought but not the maximum, super-dreadnought vessels are counted the same as normal dreadnoughts under the Treaty. The first Human super-dreadnought, the _Leviathan_, is scheduled to be completed in 2508 HCE. In addition to their conventional warships, SolForce also maintains the best armed carriers of any Orion species, including the Morrigi. These carriers typically provide long-range and point defense support for the rest of their fleets once their drones or battleriders have been launched. Humanity is the only Orion race to utilize manned fighters for space combat. As such, Node Fighter has become a symbol for Human military power, and its micronode drive has made it extremely effective in combating pirates in the Terminus Systems.

On the ground, SolForce typically relies on a mixture of combined arms and orbital supremacy to win battles. For much of the Hiver-Tarka War, Human soldiers and vehicles were somewhat outclassed by their Hiver and Tarkasian counterparts. To combat this, Humanity made extensive use of air and orbital support, dropping troops directly from orbit and utilizing attack helicopters and other close air support vehicles to destroy superior enemy armor. Though SolForce has advanced to the point where their soldiers and war machines may now compete with the other Orion races one-on-one, they still prefer to rely on combined arms and seek to claim aerial superiority whenever possible.

All SolForce members are required to be in peak physical condition and be free of any genetic or physical flaws that might hinder them in service. Due to their frailty compared to Tarka or Hiver combatants, many SolForce Marines wear a form of armor known as Brawler Powered Battle Armor. In addition to providing excellent protection, PBA also powers heavy weapons that can be integrated directly into the suit, magnifies the user's strength by a considerable margin, and modern variants often include mass effect shields or functioning jet propulsion for limited flight. SolForce members, especially those on combat deployments, are almost universally equipped with Omni-Blades as easily portable and highly lethal close-combat options.

The Ground and Vac Forces are supported by SolForce's Research and Development Section and the SolForce Intelligence Corp. SolForce R&amp;D is the largest Human institution ever dedicated solely to the pursuit of knowledge, and is extremely well-funded. Though it was forced to play catch up for decades against the more advanced Tarkasian and Hiver nations, in recent years Humanity has surpassed both nations and its technology is now on par with the Liir, Asari, Salarians, and Morrigi. Despite this, the Asari Republics and Morrigi Confederation still maintain significantly higher qualities of life for their citizens, as much of SolForce's research is directed only toward projects with military applications.

The SolForce Intelligence Corps, or SIC, is comprised of individuals from all different walks of life. The SIC works closely with Ground and Vac Forces, R&amp;D, the Diplomatic Corps, and the Scout Corps, and frequently recruits operatives from all these areas to assist in its work. The SIC is currently divided into nine different sections, based off the race each section is in charge of monitoring. Red Section deals with the Tarkasian Empire, Yellow the Hiver Imperium. The Liir are represented by Teal Section, and Blue Section deals with Council races. Orange Section monitored the Zuul before their extinction, and Purple Section deals with the Morrigi Confederation. White is reserved for non-sentient species, and the famous Black Section deals with unidentified creatures and artifacts. The final section is not sorted by color, and is instead the Trade Section. Trade Section works closely with all other parts of the SIC to monitor SolForce's economic standing compared to its neighbors. SIC operatives are often highly skilled, and its field agents are frequently head-hunted for the Spectres.

Unsurprisingly considering its status as a junta, SolForce's military spending per capita is second only to that of the Turian Hierarchy.

**Politics**

Though it technically does not speak for all Humans, SolForce is still Humanity's diplomatic 'face' and ostensibly acts for the best interests of Humans everywhere, regardless of affiliation. SolForce has thus-far pursued a policy of relative isolation, limiting its trade with foreign powers and aggressively defending its borders against possible incursions. It rarely comments on the affairs of other nations, and will object strongly to perceived 'meddling' in spheres of Human influence. Human expansion outside of the Orion Arm has been among the slowest of the Orion nations, but it has continued to expand swiftly through the Arm itself.

SolForce often finds itself in opposition to the Asari Republics. SolForce's progressive attitude often seems hasty to the conservative Republics, and its constant focus on military development is extremely troubling to many Matriarchs. In turn, Humanity feels that the Republic's high standards of living are signs of decadence and that their massive economy could be put to much more productive use. Amusingly, Humans often get along well with Asari on a personal level. Asari have similar body language to most Humans, making them easy for Humans to relate to, and many Asari find Humanity's complex cultures to be fascinating. As such, anti-Asari or anti-Human sentiment tends to be strongest on the core Human and Asari worlds, where there are fewer opportunities for the two cultures to directly interact.

The Salarian Union is a fair-weather friend to SolForce. Both nations have large amounts invested into research and prefer to field ships with the most advanced technology available. As such, joint research projects or other forms of casual assistance are not uncommon. The Salarian Union's penchant for devastating sneak attacks has prevented SolForce from strengthening its ties to the Union beyond this, however. Salarian vessels are always carefully tracked, and Deep Scan platforms are common in areas where the two nations share a border. Union officials often regard Human ships with scorn, as Humanity's obsession with larger ships and direct confrontations is in direct opposition to the standard Salarian battle doctrine. Salarians and Humans have a similarly uneasy relationship on the personal level. Many Salarians are attracted to Humans due to Humanity's reputation for innovation and swift advancement, and are often disappointed to find these generalizations do not hold true for the average citizen. The Salarian reputation for deception makes many Humans uneasy around them, and their high energy level is somewhat off-putting.

The closest ally SolForce has on the Council is the Turian Hierarchy. Following the Human/Turian War, Hierarchy officials fully admitted that its forces overreacted and have paid reparations to SolForce for the damage caused. As the Council's dedicated peacekeepers, many Hierarchy officials find Humanity's continued militarization to be unsettling and have attempted to increase the limits on Orion military vessels. Others are more accepting and optimistically hope that Human fleets will be able to eventually take over traditional Turian patrol routes, joining the Hierarchy as the galaxy's unofficial protectors. Turians get along best with members of SolForce. The Hierarchy's stratocracy is very similar to SolForce's junta, which creates common ground. While most Turians find Humans to be somewhat undisciplined and individualistic, most express great admiration for Humanity's martial feats. Human opinion of Turians varies depending on location. Many Humans on the core worlds feel that the Turians are bullies and resent the Hierarchy for continually attempting to limit Human military expansion. Freeholders and members of SolForce's patrol fleets often have nothing but good things to say about Turians, praising their honest attitudes and dedication to protecting even unaligned worlds.

The Vol Protectorate has been quite vocal in its protests over Human militarism. The Turian Hierarchy's lenient attitude toward SolForce has not helped this, as the Hierarchy sets the Protectorate's diplomatic stance and thus forces it to interact with SolForce more than its leaders would like. This attitude often carries over into Volus professional and personal relations. Most Volus are at least somewhat hostile to Humans, who are often viewed as jumped-up interlopers and violent thugs. Corporate interests are quite a different matter, and groups like Elkoss Combine have no qualms about doing business with Human corporations. Humans tend to dismiss Volus as unimportant traders and greedy merchants, and strongly dislike them for their capitalistic bent and stance on intellectual property.

SolForce has a mixed relationship with the Hanar Illuminated Primacy. Though they remain somewhat politically amicable, the Neo-Catholic Church in particular has objected strongly to the sudden influx of Hanar missionaries to Human worlds. It's requests to limit the number of alien missionaries have thus far been ignored by SolForce, but growing popular support for such limits may change this in the future. Hanar are regarded as annoyances by many Humans. Their preaching is often too forward for Human tastes, and Humans have a long history of hostility toward differing religious beliefs. For their part, Hanar find Humans to be rude and brutish, but usually find Utilitarians to be much more palatable.

The Elcor Courts of Dekunna maintain neutral relations with SolForce. Elcor worlds have too much gravity to be comfortable for Humans, and Elcor rarely travel as tourists or settle on low-gravity worlds. As such, most Elcor and Human meet only rarely. The bizarre speech patterns of the Elcor are often humorous to Humans, and their slow movement speed helps put Humans at ease. As such, many Humans are fond of Elcor. Elcor tend to think of Humans as quite hasty and with an unpleasant odor, but they usually feel that Humans at least have good intentions.

The Quarian Migrant Fleet is officially forbidden from approaching any SolForce charter world without the express permission of the SolForce Director or one of his or her Legates. This has not been an issue, as the Migrant Fleet has never requested permission to enter a system controlled by SolForce and the two nations have had next to no interactions thus far. Individually, Quarians are quite fond of Humans and Utilitarians in particular. Many Quarians on pilgrimage stay at Utilitarian Sanctuaries, and Humanity's attitude of practicality and resource conservation is familiar to many Quarians. These feelings are often not reciprocated by non-Utilitarians, and most Humans see Quarians as nothing more than wandering vagrants and parasites.

SolForce has had no official contact with the Krogan Clans and does not recognize them as legitimate stellar powers. Younger Krogan find Humans to be something of a joke, as they are extremely aggressive for their limited physical abilities. This attitude tends to soften with age. Humans often look at Krogan with a mixture of distaste and grudging affection. Krogan aggression is often similar to that shown by Changed Tarkas, and Humans were dealing with Tarkas for decades before they encountered the Council. The honesty of Krogan individuals is quite welcome, even if their confrontational attitudes are not.

SolForce maintained decent relations with the Batarian Hegemony, only clashing with Hegemony officials over the issues of slavery and piracy. But as most Batarian raiders stayed away from Human space, SolForce generally overlooked these aspects of Batarian culture. When the Extermination began, SolForce cut diplomatic ties with the Hegemony and turned all refugee vessels away from its charter worlds. Despite this, Director Freeborne was vocal in his condemnation of the Liir for their ruthless assaults, and SolForce donated a sizable number of ships to the final defense of Khar'shan. On a personal level, many Humans found Batarians to be distasteful both because of their tradition of slavery and their general arrogance. For their part, most Batarians treated Humans as a condescending older brother might. Human body shape is similar enough to that of Batarians to create a common bond, and Batarians found the intense control Human governments sometimes welded over their citizens to be quite familiar.

Slang terms for Humans include Monkeys, Stumps, Eels, Moles, and Killer Apes. All of these terms are considered to be at least somewhat offensive.


	10. Aftermath (Story)

_There's been some interest in seeing what the Liir/Batarian dynamic looked like once the Liir were done trying to commit xenocide, so let's take a look! I've been meaning to write this one for a while now, but was originally going to wait until after I wrote a Hiver story, for balance. Since I can't think of too many Hiver plots that grab me, we'll go with this instead._

_The Liir have a bit of a reputation for being the 'good guys' of SotS. They're super nice, very mystical, and only aggressive if severely provoked. I never liked that portrayal, as I find it to be very clichéd and boring. The Liir are CREEPY AS HELL when looked at the right way, and for races that are just starting to get used to the idea of psychic powers as something real, the way the Liir operate can be downright scary. Put that together with a post-xenocide occupation of the Batarians and you get a recipe for good times. _

_Not sure I like how this turned out in the end, but I'll let you all be the final judges. Like? Dislike? You know where the review button is. I'll do my best to fix whatever you find._

_Unfortunately, this may be the last update for a while. I just don't have the free time I used to, so I may have to take a bit of a break. If I can, I'll try and post the new Liir Codex soon, but no promises._

* * *

As the shuttle lifted off behind her, Elana T'Gori's dress flapped slightly in the high wind. She mentally congratulated herself on her choice of the more conservative human-style dress over an asari-style one, which would have left quite a bit more skin vulnerable to the winds of the shuttle port. As it stood, she still felt somewhat exposed, surrounded by armored turians going about their business with professional efficiency. As far as she knew, she was the only person on the base not wearing armor.

"Inspector T'Gori?" Someone called over the roar of the engines, and a turian male in blue field armor jogged up to her, helmet distorting his voice but amplifying it to be easily heard over the roar. "Let's get you somewhere else. Wouldn't look good if you got yourself squashed by a shuttle while you're wandering around the base."

The turian led her away from the shuttlepad, and Elana noticed that he seemed very well armed for how peaceful the planet was claimed to be. She noticed the distinctive shapes of a collapsed assault rifle and a sniper rifle, as well as a pistol strapped to his hip. Then again, it appeared almost everyone on this base was equally armed, so it might just be turian occupational regulations.

"There, that should get us out of everyone's way," the turian said, guiding her into a more secluded corner past one of the base's many prefabricated structures. "Welcome to Khar'shan, Inspector."

"Thank you," Elana replied graciously, before looking around in some confusion. "You wouldn't happen to know where my bags went, would you? I was told they had to be shipped down separately."

"Yeah, security is pretty tight around here," the turian explained calmly, pulling up his omni-tool. "They'll have to go through inspection to make sure you don't have any contraband before they'll ship it down. Should be here by the end of the day."

"Inspection? Why?" she asked, somewhat surprised.

"You want to know what even a pound of military grade explosives goes for on Khar'shan these days?" the turian asked, and though she couldn't see it, Elan was pretty sure his expression was somewhat wry. "There are always troublemakers who would love to get some high explosive revenge. The Liir have pretty much helped us put a stop to any organized resistance, but since the Council said we can't use hastatim or safe camps, we're limited with what we can do against individuals."

"I take it the Batarians are not integrating well with the Liir then?" Elan asked, silently triggering the hidden recording function of her omni-tool.

Her whole mission here was to make sure the rights of both species were being respected, as well as to assess the reconstruction efforts. It was her first assignment, and she wanted to make sure the matriarchs knew she was different from the other maidens that wasted their youths in merc groups or in clubs. If the Liir and Batarians were fighting again, that was certainly something the Council would want to know.

"Depends on what you mean," the turian replied calmly, though she thought she saw his gaze drift down to her omni-tool for a moment. It was hard to tell with his helmet on. "The lower casts don't mind them much, though they get very nervous when one goes by. Not much left up the upper casts, not once the plague riots got through with them, anyway, so I can't speak for them. Mostly we just see attempted crimes of passion. Usually we get there in time to stop it, though if we can't, the Liir usually take care of it themselves."

"I take it you are working quite closely with the Liir then?" Elan asked suspiciously. "Are you working with the Batarians as well?"

"What's left of them," the turian answered, and when Elan looked confused, he continued. "Towards the end of the Extermination, the Batarians had suffered so many losses that it was impossible for them to keep deceiving their people. And when the lower castes found out…it didn't end well for the Batarian leadership."

"What do you mean? Are you saying they had a civil war?"

"More like a revolution. The lower castes figured that maybe if they got rid of their leadership, the Liir would be appeased and have mercy on the rest of them. I guess it worked, in a way. The extermination stopped shortly afterward." He stiffened, his tone turning more businesslike. "Now, would you like me to show you to your quarters?"

"Actually, I'd like to look around the city first," Elan stated calmly, glancing over the walls of the compound at the city beyond. "My luggage isn't here yet in any case, so I might as well spend the time getting the lay of the land."

"Well, I haven't received any orders otherwise, so you are free to explore the city," the turian said with a shrug, leading the way toward the compound's gate. "I'll have to go with you, for your safety. There's a lot of construction going on right now, so not everywhere is safe to just wander into."  
"You said that the revolution worked 'in a way.' Could you explain what you meant by that?" she asked as they passed through the compound's gate, security drones scanning them both thoroughly before the large metal doors swung open.

"Liir don't really understand the separation between species and government. They're a collectiveist government, which works for them because they're all telepathic. But because of that, they have trouble understanding how other governments can take actions that go against the wishes of the majority of their race. They understand it academically, but when it comes to making judgments, they tend to assume that the government is just a mouthpiece for the people."

"So when they declared war, they weren't declaring war on the Hegemony, they were declaring war on the batarians themselves?"

"That's what the xenopsychologists say, anyway," he confirmed, the wry note returning to his tone as he led her out into the street. As they moved away from the compound, Elan noticed fewer and fewer turian soldiers, and started seeing her first batarians since she arrived on Khar'shan. They seemed…smaller, somehow. They didn't appear afraid, though she noticed they carefully avoided making eye contact with the turian soldiers. It was more like they were...beaten.

"Earlier, you mentioned that when there are problems, the Liir try to 'take care of it themselves' if you don't get there fast enough," Elan stated, returning to something that stuck out in their earlier conversation. "What did you mean? Do the Liir kill them?"

"Oh, definitely not," the turian said quickly, leading them around a corner and past a large construction site.

There, she got a good look at her first Liir. It was just standing there, completely encased in the strange armor they wore, mechanical tentacles sprouting from both sides to hold it aloft. It was lifting a crumbling section of building up into the air, where three batarians waited on a scaffold with plaster and cement to seal it back into the wall. She noticed that while the two groups worked with quick efficiency, neither group spoke to the other, and an armed guard was standing carefully off to the side, his assault rifle held carefully in his arms.

"We haven't found a single case of a Liir physically injuring anyone since we arrived," the turian explained, leading them away from the construction site. "They don't even fight back if they get attacked."

"So how do the Liir deal with these rogue batarians then? If they won't fight back…"

"They take away the batarian's pain," he answered gravely, and in a tone that indicated deep disgust. "We've asked them to stop, and for the most part, they have, but we still try to get there first. Just in case."

"I don't understand. Take away their pain?"

"Wow, they really do keep you inspectors like mushrooms, don't they?" the turian asked, turning to stare at her incredulously. "Liir can do a lot more than just read minds and move stuff around. They can get inside your head and rewrite your brain. Take away memories, change the way you think, maybe more."

"Goddess!" Elan exclaimed, and then her mind finished connecting the dots. "So why you say they took away the batarians' pain…"

"They literally took their pain away," he explained darkly. "The younger ones aren't very subtle yet, they just remove the memories that caused the pain. But the older ones, with a couple centuries under them?

"I knew a batarian once. He was an engineer, so we had him helping with the reconstruction. The man lost his whole family to the Extermination Plague. Wife, kids, everything. I talked with him once or twice. He wasn't a bad guy, but you could tell he wasn't all there anymore. He was on watch as a psych risk, so when he made off with a case of demo charges, we were after him almost instantly. This was before the new regulations regarding explosives, of course. They got locked down pretty fast after that.

"Anyway, we found him in the middle of his home, ready to blow himself up and take half the block with him. I wanted to just take him down with a sniper then storm the place with the bomb squad, but we got ordered to get back and let the negotiators try to defuse him. Problem was, the Liir didn't have the same red tape we did.

"One of them walked right through our checkpoint, and disarmed the bomb before we even got close. Right through the wall, couldn't even see the damn thing. Something to do with its echolocation or something. Anyway, then it smashed the door in with those tentacles on their suits, and walked right next to our bomber. Two minutes later, they both walk out, and the batarian turns himself in. Didn't even resist."

"Doesn't seem so bad," Elan pointed out carefully, though she knew there must be more to the story. "The Liir was able to peacefully resolve the situation without bloodshed."

"Yeah, but I talked with the batarian later. He was a totally different person. He was happy and smiling. I knew the guy for almost a month, he never smiled once." The turian led her down another street, and Elan sudden realized just how empty the city seemed. Compared to the streets on Thessia or the Citadel, the city was almost deserted. "I asked him about his family, and he said it just didn't bother him anymore. He remembered them, but they didn't make him sad or angry anymore. This was a guy who was so worked up over his family's deaths that he was ready to blow himself up, and take everyone else with him. And in two minutes, he just doesn't care anymore?"

"You mentioned that you've asked the Liir to stop taking away the batarians' pain?" she probed, fishing for more information as she changed the subject.

"Well, the higher-ups talked to their higher-ups," he answered with a shrug. "They were concerned about the possible long-term effects of the Liir's brain tinkering, as well as possible sentient rights violations. So now they're just stuck with traditional methods of brainwashing."

"Traditional methods?"

"You might have seen them on the way in," the turian said, pointed up at the sky. "The Liir sent two 'communication' ships shortly after the occupation began. We've got one of the best extranet connections you'll find outside the Citadel. And the batarians were not happy when they found out exactly how much their government had lied to them, either. It's actually helped quite a bit to keep the level of violence down."

"You say 'communication ships' like you mean something entirely different," Elan pointed out calmly.

"That's because they don't just provide a nice link to the extranet. The Liir were kind enough to hook the batarians into their networks as well, only the Liir don't really have networks the way we do. They're a telepathic collective, they don't need them, except when communicating across planets. So a lot of their data is designed to be viewed by aliens like us." The turian stopped and turned to face Elan, his voice going grave. "Imagine what kind of data files, vids, songs you would send if you had all the cunning and wisdom of an asari matriarch, and could look into their minds to see exactly what made the batarians tick. Propaganda tailored specifically for them. Just a theory, of course, we can't prove it, but…"

"You're saying the Liir have a pair of propaganda ships in orbit, and never bothered to tell anyone?" she asked, thankful she remembered to trigger her recorder.

"I'm saying that considering the Liir just tried to commit xenocide, the amount of hostility we're seeing from the batarians doesn't add up. They were one of the most vindictive and warlike races on the Citadel before we opened up the Orion Arm. We should be seeing riots in the streets, not mild resentment and crimes of passion."

"I'm not sure that-" Elan's next sentence was cut off by two sharp cracks from a nearby alley that some part of the back of her mind recognized as gunfire. The turian reacted instantly, tackling her to the ground and pulling out his sniper rifle, eyes scanning the entire street in an instant.

"Stay down!" he ordered, and got to his feet, dashing over to the mouth of the alley and taking cover behind one of the walls.

Now that she was looking for it, she could make out movement in the alley. The figure of a large Liir, almost six meters long, took up most of the back of the alley, though she could make out someone else moving behind the Liir.

"Both of you! Come out of there, and put any weapons you may have on the ground!" the turian ordered, edging around the corner to point his rifle at the two figures. The Liir moved, but not to leave the alley. Instead, it shifted its body to shield the figure behind it from view, blocking the turian's shot.

"This man is distraught," the Liir explained, turning its armored face toward the turian. "Please leave us. I fear your presence will only aggravate him now."

"No!" the other figure yelled, moving forward. She could see it was a haggard-looking batarian male, a pistol in his hand and his gait uneven. Drugs or alcohol, maybe? "You stay, turian! I wanna know how you justify this!"

"Justify what?" the turian asked, though from his tone and the way he pulled one hand behind his back to activate his omnitool, it looked as though he was only stalling for time.

"This!" the batarian snarled, pressing his pistol up against the Liir's head. The Liir didn't seem bothered by this, moving its head only slightly to look at him expressionlessly. "You turians just sat back and let these monsters murder us all! You knew what they were doing to use, and you did nothing! And then when they've finished, you just swoop in and occupy our planets! You even let _them_ live here, any expect us to be peaceful neighbors with the race that tried to exterminate us!"

"The Hegemony left the Citadel years before the war ever began," the turian said evenly, though his hand returned to the rifle and Elan saw him trying to aim around the Liir's protective bulk. "We can't interfere in the affairs of species that aren't members."

"We left because the Council was trying to outlaw our culture!" yelled the batarian, gesturing wildly with the gun. The turian's finger tightened around the trigger, but before he could take the shot, the Liir again moved to conceal the batarian from view. "The caste system was who we were, it was what made us great! You had no right to ask us to give that up!"

"Who you were?" the Liir asked, straightening, and for the first time, Elan thought she heard something like anger creeping into its tone. Its movement allowed the turian to line up another shot against the batarian, but the Liir gestured calmingly with a pair of tentacles. "Peace, friend. I have already disabled his weapon. He can harm no one now."

The batarian looked down at his gun in confusion before shoving it into the Liir's face and pulling the trigger several times. When nothing happened, he screamed in frustration and threw it at the Liir. It bounced harmlessly off the creature's armor, and the batarian began scrambling backward as the Liir straightened and placed its face inches from the batarian's.

"You have no idea of what you speak," the Liir pronounced, the anger softening to something like pity. "Come, little one. I will show you who you were. Perhaps then you will understand."

The batarian stiffened, his four eyes all rolling back into his head as he began to twitch uncontrollably. Moans and groans of pain escaped his lips, and a line of drool began sliding from the corner of his mouth to the pavement.

"What the hell did you just do?" the turian yelled, raising his rifle again, only to be met with another placating tentacle.

"Your leaders have asked that we stop taking their pain, because it is how your kind learns and grows," the Liir explained calmly. "So instead, to help him learn, I gave him more pain."

"You're torturing him?" the turian accused, and his finger began tightening on the trigger again.

"Not at all. I work with former slaves, helping to rehabilitate them," the Liir explained, its clicking voice being given a mechanical edge by the suit's speakers. "He did not understand the pain the batarian caste system caused, so I showed it to him. I gave him two years of memories I took from a young asari slave girl. All that she felt, all that she experienced, is now his."

"You just dumped two years of memories into him?" the turian asked, incredulous.

"The highlights," the Liir answered, nodding in agreement. "I only took what she could not bear to remember. He will recover shortly. The mind experiences time differently. What are seconds for us may be minutes or hours for him. When he has finished reliving them, I will remove the memories again. They are not his burden to bear."  
"But you'll remember them?" Elan asked, climbing back to her feet and walking up to the alley.  
"That is our penance," it replied somberly. "The Black Swimmers remember."

The turian moved between Elan and the alley, not lowering his rifle. He looked like he was about to say something, when the batarian suddenly jerked upright, gasping in shock. The batarian glanced around in surprise, and then embraced the Liir, clinging to its armored form like a drowning man would to a life raft.

"I'm so sorry!" he wept, sobbing openly as he cluched at the armored form beside him. "We didn't know! We didn't know!"

"You knew, but you did not understand," the Liir corrected gently. "I will remove the memories now. Please try to relax."

"Why?" the batarian asked, as the pain slowly eased from his face. "Why did you stop? We deserved it. We deserved it all and worse."

"We stopped because you were no longer Suul'ka," it explained as if it was the simplest thing in the world. "Officer, I understand that your duty requires you to arrest this man. However, as there has been no harm done, would you consider looking the other way just this once? The weapon has been destroyed, I am uninjured, and I believe Grota here has seen the error of his ways."

The turian seemed to think for a moment, and then sighed heavily. He collapsed his rifle and returned it to his back, shaking his head.

"See her? She's an inspector for the Council," he answered heavily, pointing to Elan. "You attacked his mind right in front of her. At this point, I couldn't let you go even if I wanted to, which I don't."

"But you do," the Liir answered, calmly contradicting him. "You know that the batarian will be locked up and placed in a penal group, even though he was young, foolish, and he held his sister in his arms as she died of the plague my people inflicted upon him. You know I will swim free within hours, because your people don't even have words for what I just did to him, much less laws against it. There is no justice to be had here. Only pain."

"That doesn't matter," the turian said, sighing heavily. "There are rules. I still have to take you in."

"As you wish," the Liir stated calmly, just as an assault shuttle swooped overhead, circling to land carefully in the middle of the street. A squad of turian soldiers disembarked, guns snapping toward any possible threat as they moved to secure the scene.

"Figures, backup always shows up just when you don't need it anymore," he grumbled, walking over to stand next to Elan. "Welcome to Khar'shan, Inspector."

"Does this sort of thing happen often?" she asked in confusion, hearing the wearied resignation in his tone.

"At least once a week. Not usually this spectacularly, of course," the turian confirmed. "I'm sure we'll have a word with the Liir about this 'pain sharing' thing, but they'll just have a new trick within a few months."

"Goddess," she whispered softly, suddenly understanding the magnitude of her task. The batarians were in pain, suffering from the almost total extermination of their species, and the trauma had obviously broken them. The turians had placed the whole planet under military occupation with armed soldiers patrolling the streets. The Liir were trying to help, but their idea of help made her skin crawl. And the worst was she honestly couldn't fault any of them. She had no idea how even the Council could sort this mess out.

"That's why I'm transferring to C-Sec," the turian announced as two armed soldiers escorted the unresistant Liir into the shuttle, which suddenly looked very cramped. "Give me illegal red sand dealers and weapon smugglers over this spookie telepathic crap any day."

"I can't say that I blame you..." Elan's voice trailed off as she realized she had never actually been introduced to the turian.

"Garrus," the turian answered, a small grin on his face. "Garrus Vakarian."


	11. Liir (Codex)

_And now, the Liir Codex entry, for those of you Mass Effecters who are wondering just what's with the weird psychic fish people. This promises to be a bit more interesting than the Human entry, since humans are really the same no matter what universe you're in. Sci-fi/fantasy is funny that way. SotS fans may want to skip the history/biology bits, as you probably are already familiar with those. Interestingly, the Liir have the most complex political position of the SotS races, since they kind of did a 180 after xenociding the batarians. Not a great way to make friends there..._

_For one last concern, everyone is stuck with Fusion tech until two years after when the original ME game takes place. The Loa, Prester Zuul, and other SotS 2 concepts will also be arriving, but they'll be a bit late to the party. _

_Any other questions or comments? Leave a review! I try to follow up with everyone, even if it's just a quick thank you note._

* * *

_"Order the fleets to hold back. No one is that nice unless they can afford to be."_  
-Tarkasian emissary following the first negotiations with the Liir

_"Be grateful, Krogan. You faced the Turians and the Salarians. They only neutered you. Had you fought the Liir as we did, your race would not have even lived to see the end of another decade."_  
-Overheard on Omega

**Liir**

The Liir are a powerful stellar nation, boasting fifteen dreadnoughts, dozens of worlds, and more carriers than any other nation affiliated with the Council. All Liir are powerful psychics, and it was the Liir that first proved the existence of psychic abilities to the galaxy at large. Recent research into the psychic phenomena has revealed that the Asari, Elcor, and Hanar races are also psychic to some degree, though because they lack the strong cultural traditions that would encourage the development of such abilities even a relatively young Liir currently outstrips the most gifted Asari by several orders of magnitude. The Liir are also the second aquatic species to discover the Citadel, after the Hanar. Unlike the Hanar, the Liir are a cetacean species, but to avoid dehydration and to allow propulsion, they wear metallic suits when on land. Liir are hermaphroditic, and will identify with whatever gender they feel most connected to at the time. For example, a pregnant Liir would claim to be female, where as a Liir soldier (known as a Black Swimmer) would identify as male. Gender is a state of mind to the Liir, and they are often quite confused by races like the Morrigi or Salarians who make strong cultural divisions along these lines. Though it is more polite to refer to a Liir by the gender he or she currently identifies with, they are not offended if referred to with the gender neutral pronoun 'it'.

Liir only have two cones in their eyes, so they do not see the color green or any of its derivatives. They make up for this with their ability to 'sing', utilizing advanced echolocation to instantly examine objects and locations, including the interior. Liir are conscious breathers, so going unconscious for any period of time would be swiftly fatal. Since they do not sleep as most races do, they allow one lobe of their brain to sleep for several hours while the other two remain active. This allows them to remain active for an indefinite period of time, but makes dealing with stress and trauma more difficult because they lack a subconscious to help them process such things. Liir are unique among known races in that they have no maximum age. Liir will continue growing throughout their lives, eventually reaching massive sizes after several centuries of life. These Liir are known as Elders and are psychics of fantastic power, capable of telepathic 'duels' with hundreds of younger Liir at a time. Eventually, Elders grow so large that their bulk cannot be supported, even in water, and they will die. Liir are quite philosophical about this process, and suggestions of zero-gravity platforms or mass effect harnesses to allow Elders to survive past this point have been met with borderline hostility.

The Liir are a very recent addition to the galaxy, and owe their rapid advancement to a race known only as the Suul'ka. Many centuries ago, this race invaded the Liir homeworld of Muur while the Liir were just a bronze-age civilization. This enslavement lasted for hundreds of years, as the Liir were unwilling to resist due to their emphatic nature. Eventually the suffering of the Liir grew too great, and they rose up in rebellion despite their pacifistic nature. The early stages of the war were said to be extremely bloody, however the Liir eventually unleashed a powerful bioweapon against the Suul'ka that appears to have completely eliminated the species. Following the destruction of the Suul'ka, the Liir reverse-engineered their technology, uplifting themselves.

Liir are primarily known for their mental abilities. Liir are powerful telekinetics, and their echolocation allows them to manipulate objects they cannot see, such as the mechanisms inside a machine. Fine manipulation is taxing, however, and while Liir are only capable of interacting with objects through their telekinesis, they generally do not do so for long periods of time. Liir are also highly telepathic, and communicate with each other almost entirely through this method. Elders often attract large clouds of younger Liir who swim beside them, mentally communing with the Elder and learning from his or her wisdom. There has been a recent trend among the more philosophical Asari to join these Liir, but the difficulties of such a life have prevented the trend from growing beyond the most dedicated of followers.

Individuals who have spend long periods of time among the Liir have been known to exhibit strong physical and mental changes. Liir mental abilities allows them to see into both the minds and bodies of those they interact with, and their culture does not have a concept equivalent to privacy. So long as a Liir believes no one will be harmed and that his or her action will improve the lives of others, they will not hesitate to take actions others might frown upon. Those who swim with the Liir have reported improved health, expanded lifespans, substantial progress in dealing with mental issues like depression or anxiety, and improved ability to tap into any psionic potential they might possess. Such people are often called 'Liir-Touched', in some cases have also claimed to see dramatic shifts in personality and outlook. As such, Liir and particularly Liir Elders are a source of much awe and suspicion in the galaxy at large.

Government is a complicated issue among the Liir. It would be best described as a collectivist government, with the oldest Liir on the planet (known as the Eldest) setting policy and gathering the collected opinions of the rest of his or her race. The Eldest on each planet is called the name of the planet, for example the Muur Eldest would be called Muur. Liir do not have laws or property, freely sharing among their own kind and with visitors, and are often confused by the concept when first visiting other species. Their emphatic ability to sense the emotions and thoughts of others makes such ideas redundant, though certain unwritten regulations are obviously present among the Black Swimmers.

Black Swimmers are the official term for the Liir's military arm. The name originates from the Liir term for space: the Black Sea. Thus, the Black Swimmers are those who swim in the Black Sea and are led by the Black, the Eldest of the Black Swimmers. The Black has not appeared before any known non-Liir, but is the closest the Liir have to a single leader. As undisputed leader for the Liir space forces, the Black controls foreign policy, trade, and commands during war. The Black is responsible for planning the Batarian Extermination, and was brought to trial in absentia for war crimes during its aftermath. The Black, as well as all other Liir including the Citadel Eldest, declined to attend the trial, but did give the Hiver ambassador permission to represent the defense.

Due to their telepathic abilities and echolocation, Liir are renown as excellent scientists, especially at deciphering the technologies of others. They lack the creativity and ambition of Humans and Salarians, but the ability to pool the knowledge of several dozen individuals at once more than makes up for this. Liir seem especially fond of particle manipulation, and were the first race to discover the secrets of true energy shields, rather than simple mass effect barriers. Liir are also masters of genetic engineering, a talent they have frequently turned to devastating use in war. Several Krogan clans have approached the Liir about curing the genophage, however the Liir have made no official response to these requests.

The Asari have historically had the best relationship with the Liir. Their similar lifespan has created a unique connection only shared by the Krogan, and their pacifistic and philosophical nature was well received. Liir often view Asari in their Maiden years with some confusion, as this is the time when most Liir would be staying near Elders, learning from their wisdom. They have difficulty understanding why so many would leave the Matriarchs to pursue what they generally see as selfish, individualistic goals. Despite this confusion, the Liir maintained good relations with the Asari Republics until the Batarian Extermination. Following the revelation that the Liir were behind the Extermination Plague the Asari Republics formally placed a trade embargo on the Liir, and Matriarch Benezia traveled to Muur in an attempt to get the Black Eldest to stop the attacks. After the Extermination ended the Republics lifted the embargo, but they remain somewhat suspicious of the Liir. For their part, the Liir seem rather perplexed at this reaction, viewing the Extermination as regrettable but necessary.

The Salarian Union had maintained a more neutral stance toward the Liir. Several joint Salarian/Liir research projects have yielded impressive fruit, such as the creation of practical X-Ray laser weapons. The two races also share an interest in advanced biology and gene-mods for several crop species, including dexro crops, have helped greatly reduce the difficulties of settling new worlds. On a personal level, the Liir find the Salarians almost pitiable, as from a Liir perspective they barely have time to do anything before they die. The Salarians often find the Liir to be too concerned about philosophical problems and long term consequences for their tastes, much like the Asari. The two races have essentially agreed to disagree, however. The Salarian Union did not officially take any action against the Liir for the Batarian Extermination, and have denied any allegations that the STG was or still is active in Batarian Space. Salarian scientists were the first to discover a reliable cure for the Extermination Plague, though they were unable to effectively deploy it in large quantities until after the Extermination ended. Noted Salarian scientist Mordin Solus is on record as saying:

_"Extermination virus weapon of genocide, not war. Difficult to detect, month long incubation period, capable of dormancy for three, four times that. Maximizes natural spread, very logical. But killing method too clean, painless. Victims go to sleep, never wake up. War weapon would be horrific, painful, incentive swift surrender. Extermination virus simply __incentives __death. *Sniff* Interesting insight into Liir psychology."_

Interestingly, relations with the Turian Hierarchy have improved following the Extermination. The lawless nature of the Liir caused natural friction with the ordered nature of the Hierarchy. The Liir's refusal to take proactive steps against Batarian aggression, preferring to bring issues to the Council instead, also convinced the Turians that the Liir were not ready to be Council members and that they might be better as a client race to more active races like the Turians or Asari. The severity of the Liir's eventual retaliation has silenced these concerns, and while the Hierarchy has officially denounced the Liir's total war doctrine, several ranking admirals have expressed admiration for the thoroughness and forethought put into the Liir campaign. Though the two races are still not very close, several joint training exercises have been proposed between Turian and Liir forces. The Liir have currently declined all such offers.

The Liir and Salarian Union's work on new bio-engineered dextro crops has led to a positive relationship with the Migrant Fleet, which is a common sight in Liir space. Liir often appreciate the addition of Quarian labor for land construction, but the regimented lifestyle of the Fleet often clashes with the free-spirited Liir, resulting in short stays. The Krogan have largely held the Liir in disdain for their pacifism, though several major clan heads have expressed admiration for the violence of the Batarian Extermination. Their extensive use of bioweapons, however, appears to have prevented the Liir from gaining any real ground with the Krogan for their actions.

Hanar and Liir get along very well as the only aquatic Citadel races, and though Liir are generally not tourists, Hanar and Liir have been known to occasionally visit each others' worlds. Many Hanar, especially those that spend time with Liir Elders, have reported deep spiritual changes and occasionally psychotic episodes. Liir have not claimed to see any significant changes from visiting Hanar worlds, though they have exhibited an increasing interest in Prothean relics and art in recent years. Black Swimmers and Drell often seem to get along well, as their codes of duty are sometimes very similar. Liir do not do well in heavy gravity environments, though the Elcor have expressed pleasure with Liir telepathy, as the Liir often take them more seriously than other species. The Volus have very little to do with the Liir (often known as Muur-clan), as the Liir generally do not value possessions highly and so make somewhat sporadic trade partners.


	12. Epitaph (Story)

_Well, it's been a while! My real life got a bit busy, with work and several other things coming together all at once. On the plus side, I finally got some spare time to finish this bit up. This is something of a prologue to the plot section of our story. As you will no doubt discover, my poll overwhelmingly favored scrapping the Reapers and focusing on the interaction between the races. As such, this story has no real influence on the plot (that you know of, muhahahaha), but it does tie up the issue of what happened to the Reapers, thus cleaning the slate for us to start fresh. _

_Since this was written in bits and pieces, I don't think it stands up as well as it might. But I leave the final decision to you. Reviews are appreciated, and as always I do try to take all advice to heart. Something you are looking forward to? Something I forgot? Let me know, and I'll see what I can do._

*EDIT: I originally stated that the volus breathed methane, when they in fact breathe ammonia. This has been corrected.*

* * *

"Thank you again for agreeing to come on such short notice, Doctor T'soni. You can't begin to understand how much we value the assistance of an expert such as yourself."

Liara privately thought the volus was laying it on a bit thick as they walked up to the entrance of the ruins, but politely declined to say so. When the volus survey ship scanned this world and claimed to have discovered a Prothean ruin, the majority of experts were quick to dismiss the claim. There had been no ruins discovered in the Orion Arm previously, and with almost the entire galactic arm devoid of relays, it seemed extremely unlikely that the Protheans had spread to this sector of the galaxy.

But Liara wasn't most experts. Though she was still young, and some of her theories regarding the Prothean extinction were largely regarded with derision, she persevered. The possibility of a Prothean ruin in the Orion Arm…it could change everything they thought they knew. Even if it was a long shot, she had to investigate it.

"I would hardly call myself an expert, Van," she replied with a pleasant smile, returning to the conversation. "And I would never miss this kind of opportunity."

"So are the ruins Prothean?" Van Core asked as they stopped just outside of the massive pyramid structure. It was made of stone and heavily overgrown, but was very well preserved for such an ancient structure. "The Elkoss Combine has permission from SolForce to survey the worlds without known Node Lines, but things could get quite awkward if these were actually Prothean ruins."

"Why?" Liara asked, pulling up her omnitool and sweeping it through the air, trying to get an accurate reading on the structure before her. Whatever they looked like, the 'stones' of the pyramid weren't of any naturally occurring rock. Definitely artificial, and at first glance it was the same sort of material the Protheans used for most of their construction. "Humanity is a Council race. Aren't they obligated to turn over all Prothean artifacts to the Council just like everyone else is?"

"As if those paranoid Sol-Clan would ever willingly give up technology that could give them an edge," Van wheezed darkly, glancing around as if he expected SolForce troopers to start dropping out of the sky any second. "But no, that's not Elkoss' primary concern. This planet is still technically claimed by humanity, but there are no known Node Lines. They would scream bloody murder if anyone but them did the excavation, but they can't get ships here without going slower than light, which would take years. This whole thing is a mess."

"Why were you even surveying these planets if SolForce won't let anyone into them anyway? Liara asked, though she was only half interested. Most of her attention was focused on her omnitool, where she had a VI going through the design of all known Prothean ruins, trying to find a match for the one she was seeing here.

"The Sol-Clan may be paranoid, but they know decent business," Van gasped, a bit defensively. "Elkoss is paid a survey fee, and we have a standing mining contract. We find it, mine it, and bring it to them, and they pay us for our trouble. Of course, they insist on going over our sensor logs and manifests with a microscope before they'll accept any shipments. Almost more of a pain than its worth."

"Well, I have good news for you then, Van," Liara said, deactivating her omnitool and walking up to the entrance. "I don't think these ruins are Prothean. I think they're Morrigi."

"Morrigi? Are you sure?"

"I can't be sure until I get inside, but I suspect so," she stated, walking over to a pillar to the right of the door and examining it. "Prothean pyramids tend to be smaller with smooth sides, while Morrigi pyramids are larger, and have- I'm boring you. I'm so sorry."

"No need to apologize. We asked for an expert, and I'd rather have one that is too passionate about her work than one that doesn't care," he puffed, before staring up at the pillar himself. "Is it safe to go inside? I heard Morrigi ruins were heavily defended."

"I think if there were any defenses, they would have activated by now. Morrigi defenses are usually on an orbital scale, or so I heard. Morrigi aren't really my specialty," Liara admitted sheepishly. She then returned her attention to the pillar. Closing her eyes, a blue aura began to surround her, and she gently pushed off the ground to slowly drift upward.

About eight feet up the pillar, she found was she was looking for. Pressing a hand to a specific section of the stone, she felt it give under her touch, the entire pillar suddenly blazing with light. Behind her, the heavy doors to the pyramid began to grind open, dust falling from unseen cracks and corners.

"What did you do?" Van gasped, glancing at the yawning darkness of the pyramid with apprehension.

"That was a Morrigi control pillar," Liara explained, pulling her pistol off her hip and triggering the flashlight attached to it. She then led the way into the abandoned structure, Van following nervously behind. "They wrap their bodies around it to use it. Since they're considerably larger than we are though, I figured the door controls were probably higher up."

"I thought you said you didn't specialize in Morrigi. And why do you need a gun? This place is abandoned," he wheezed, glancing around as various lights flickered on and off in corners of the hallway.

"That doesn't mean some of the local wildlife might not have snuck in during the few thousand years this place has been empty," Liara pointed out, walking cautiously down the spacious hallway as somewhere deep within the pyramid, more ancient machinery began trying to power up. "And I don't specialize in the Morrigi. They're more like a…hobby. They interest me. They're a culture as old as the asari, and maybe even more advanced when they were at their prime! Think of all the history! The culture! The-I'm boring you again, aren't I?"

"Your enthusiasm is admirable, Doctor, but all I really need to know is if these ruins are Prothean or not. If that was a Morrigi control pillar, then that makes these ruins Morrigi, right?"

"Not necessarily," she correctly, turning a corner to lead them toward a large room of unknown purpose. "The Morrigi are an ancient people, and even they don't know all their history. It's possible that the Morrigi know or knew something about the Protheans. They might have even been contemporaries."

"You're reaching," Van pointed out skeptically, and Liara sighed, deflating.

"Maybe. But I want to at least look. Just let me see if I can get the computers online? Then we can leave," she pleaded, and after a moment's hesitation, Van nodded.

"Fine. But we don't go any further in than this room," he wheezed, and Liara nodded in agreement, slowly moving her light around the room.

A large holodisplay, unused for centuries, took up the majority of the room, while a half dozen control pillars were arrayed in a circle around it. The first three Liara examined were obviously damaged beyond repair, but the fourth sputtered to life when she touched it. Activating her omnitool, she pressed it against the Morrigi pillar, and the omni-tool's color changed from golden yellow to a pale green.

"What are you doing?" Van asked as the display began flickering and spitting sparks.

"Rerouting power from non-essential systems. Lights, doors, that sort of thing. We aren't going any further right now, so we only need power to this room and the computers," Liara said, hand dancing over her omnitool. "The Morrigi have an omnitool extension that allows omnitools to interface with control pillars, which I keep on mine for just such an emergency. Fortunately for us, they haven't really changed their software in any meaningful way in several millennia. And the humans say asari have stagnated."

The display suddenly flickered to life, showing a large avian face rasping at them in Morrigi, which their translators instantly picked up and deciphered.

"Administrator access granted. Warning. Power at critical levels."

"Enact emergency protocols," Liara told it, and the floating head nodded.

"Emergency protocols enacted. Power reroute successful. Please allow several minutes for sensor reboot."

"Computer, do you have any records of a species called the Protheans?" Van asked, and when Liara glared at him, he just shrugged. "What? It might work."

"The odds of a computer correctly identifying-"

"Match found. Protheans. Known in many historical texts as Those Who Raise Up. What would you like to know?"

Liara simply stared open-mouthed, too dumbstruck to even form words for a moment. The Morrigi knew of the Protheans. Not just knew about them, but they had historical texts about them! This was more than she had ever dared hope.

"What happened to the Protheans?" Van asked as Liara still stood gaping, struck dumb by her sheer luck. Again, she shot a withering glare at him, which he just shrugged off. "What? Everyone wants to know."

"The Reapers came," the computer announced, and the display image shifted to that of a massive, squid-like starship. The image continued to change, showing three of these ships landing in the middle of a city, beam weapons instantly destroying anything that dared fight back.

"What are the Reapers?" Liara asked, and the display again changed to show several different types of ships, each sharing the squid-like appearance.

"Reapers are a race of sentient machines. Their creators are unknown, however their purpose is obvious. They hibernate in dark space, returning approximately every fifty thousand years to exterminate all life in the galaxy. To serve this purpose, they created the Relay Network and the Citadel, forcing races to settle along specific areas of the galaxy, and to utilize specific technologies that they have adapted to defeat."

Liara and Van both stared at the machine in utter disbelief. Thoughts raced through Liara's head at light speed. If it was true, this information changed literally everything they knew about the galaxy. Their culture, technology, everything was all a lie. This went far beyond any archaeological discovery. But before she could put her confused thoughts into works, the computer continue.

"Throughout the course of this cycle, different races have attempted many different stratagems to defeat the Reapers, or to survive the cycle," the computerized voice continued, the lights swirling and shifting.

The images changed again, this time to a large, conical vessel firing a beam of some type, then to a collection of spinning diamond shaped ships that appeared to be strip mining a planet with an unknown beam weapon. The image changed again, this time to a golden sphere covered in spikes. As they watched, the spikes fired off like missiles, beams firing from their tips.

"All of these strategies were ultimately futile. In the end, a solution was proposed by a race known only as Stonesouls. They proposed the creation of a device called the Catalyst," the computer continued, and the images again changed, this time to a massive space construction.

"Goddess! That thing is almost the size of the Citadel!" Liara exclaimed as a box of statistics appeared next to the spinning construct.

"The Catalyst's design and construction was too great for any one cycle. As the Reapers destroyed one race, the Stonesouls would take what they had created and hide it in places the Reapers could not find. Though the Reapers searched, the Stonesouls would always be one step ahead of them."

"By the time the Stonesouls returned with the Catalyst, the Protheans were almost defeated. They had retreated to the Orion Arm, destroying Relays as they went in a futile attempt to buy time. During this period, the Protheans began grooming the Travelers and several other races to take their place. Originally, the Sisters were intended for this role, but after the Protheans were driven from that part of the galaxy, they could not continue the project."

"Who are the Sisters?" Van wondered, but Liara shushed him as the computer continued.

"Led by Avatar Javik, the Protheans made a final effort to fire the completed Crucible, succeeding only at the cost of Javik's life," the computer rasped, showing the image of a noble looking Prothean, armed with a beam weapon of some kind. "The Crucible succeeded in destroying the Reapers, but the Stonesouls were treacherous. They betrayed the few surviving Protheans, and it is believed both species perished in the struggle."

Deep within the pyramid, ancient machinery ground and moaned, and the whole room shook with an unidentifiable roar. The computer display blinked out, and the two explorers were thrown to the ground as the lights began flickering again.

"What was that?" Van asked, pushing himself to his feet unsteadily. "What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Liara protested, pulling herself to her feet next to the holotank. "Computer! Status report!"

"Unknown ship detected in orbit," the computer replied calmly. "As per emergency protocols, power has been rerouted to drone control. Normal functions will resume when the threat has been dealt with."

"Drone control?" Liara asked in confusion, frantically trying to get the holotank back online when Van's communicator suddenly went off.

"Sir, did you do something? We're picking up about a dozen small metal objects that just took off from your location and are headed our way, fast," it squawked, the signal distorted by the artificial stone around them. "Are you alright?"

"We're fine, but it looks like our 'expert' activated a Morrigi defense system," Van replied, shooting her a look that probably would have been withering were he not in a pressure suit. "Retreat to a safe distance, we'll call you back when we've disabled the defenses."

"Rodger that. Raising barriers and powering up the engines. Hope you two can figure this out."

Liara, meanwhile, gave a frustrated cry and smashed the uncooperative display with one glowing fist, causing it to immediately hum back to life. Shrugging, she stepped back to see the planet displayed next to a series of glowing green arrows rapidly closing on a single glowing red one.

"They aren't going to make it!" she exclaimed, seeing their survey ship's slow acceleration rapidly losing the race against the green icons. "Computer, deactivate the drones!"

"Negative. Drone functions cannot be disabled from this terminal."

"Van, it's no good. The engines took too long to power back up, we can't out run them," the ship reported, the static on the line getting steadily worse. "We're picking them off with the beamers, but there's too many of them, and they're using some type of tractor beam. We're getting dragged back toward the planet, and the more we lower our mass, the faster they can pull us."

"Do the drones just not want the ship leaving orbit?" Van wondered, but Liara cut him off as she began rapidly flicking through her omnitool.

"It's a Morrigi colony trap. The drones grab ships and drag them through the atmosphere until they burn up," she explained, triggering every kind of hacking and system protocol she knew to try and get control of the drones. It was times like this she wished she knew more about this sort of thing, but she was an archaeologist, not an engineer, damn it. "It's not an Orion ship, so it can normally handle atmospheric flight no problem, but they'll just keep pulling it through the atmosphere until the hull melts if they have to, or spin the ship so the air resistance itself tears it to bits."

"We've taken…of the drones, but…latched on…pretty hard." The communication was even worse this time, the words barely audible over the interference. "…mass to…not helping…if you have…would be a good time!"

"You're the expert, turn this damn thing off!" Van snapped, frantically tuning his communicator to try and boost the signal.

"I can't! The system is too alien and too old! The only way I know of to shut down the drones is to set the main reactor into meltdown!"

"Then do it!"

"I can't!" Liara exclaimed, staring wide-eyed at the holotank. "The whole facility would be destroyed! We'd lose all the records! This is the biggest discovery in millennia, we can't just blow it up!"

"There are people on that ship! They have maybe minutes to live at this point! I don't care if it blows up every damn relay in this arm, shut those drones down!"

A tiny intellectual corner of Liara's mind wanted to point out that exploding relays invariably took whole star systems with them, which would kill billions, and that there were only four known relays in the Orion Arm anyway. These petulant thoughts were almost instantly overwhelmed by horror at her choice.

It was the discovery of a life time. A chance to prove to everyone that her theories weren't just guesswork and idle speculation. Proof that the Protheans were connected to the Morrigi, and maybe other Orion races as well. More disturbingly, proof that everything they knew about mass effect technology was wrong. Could she just throw it away? It would be so easy to fake. A few moments hesitation, and it would be too late. No one could blame her for not hacking a millennia old alien computer fast enough. Then just use the shuttle to call for help, something strong enough to destroy the drones, and she'd be known for the greatest discovery since the Citadel. All she had to do was let a ship full of innocent people die.

For a split second, one second she knew would be ashamed of for the rest of her life, she actually considered it. Then she slammed her glowing omnitool onto the control pillar, grabbed Van under one stubby arm, and started dashing for the exit.

"The reactor runs off antimatter," she yelled as she ran down the hall, Van desperately trying to keep up on his stumpy little legs. "I started a shutdown program on the containment for it, so when it fails, this whole complex will be nothing but rubble!"

"How long do we have?" he asked, gasping between almost every word as he stumbled and nearly fell. Liara whirled around and coated him in a blue biotic glow, and he began bounding along the hall like a child on a trampoline.

"No idea! But the drones should have shut off as soon as I started the program," she answered as they began running again, the light from the entrance suddenly appearing before them. The pair shot out the massive doors at a full sprint and did not slow until they reached the shuttle parked safely several hundred meters away.

"That should do it," Liara panted, turning to face the pyramid as she frantically gasped for breath. "The reactor was located much lower in the complex, so we should be perfectly-"

The pyramid exploded, the earth rippling from the underground blast and throwing both of them to the ground. As the flaming bits of debris started falling, the young asari frantically pulled a biotic barrier around both herself and Van with the last of her strength.

When the ringing in her ears finally started to fade, Liara finally dared to open her eyes again. She sat up and finally let her barrier fade. Several hunks of scorched rock the size of her torso seemed to have bounced off it, and several clumps of wreckage the size of their shuttle lay scattered around them. Fortunately, the shuttle itself appeared to have taken only superficial damage.

"Van, are you alright?" she asked, frantically searching for her companion. If something got through her barrier, a suit rupture could be lethal to the ammonia breathing volus.

"Next time, I'm staying on the damned ship," came the gasping voice as Van pulled himself to his feet. "Well, at least when you destroy something, you don't mess around, Doctor. Have you ever considered a career as a commando?"

"I doubt a life of violence would suit me," Liara replied with a smile as Van's communicator began to speak again, reporting that all the drones had shut down and that they were back in stationary orbit. "I'm just an archaeologist."

_Liara T'Soni's journal article, "The Fate of the Protheans," written shortly after this incident, was greeted with great criticism from the academic community. Major complaints included several unsupported jumps in logic as well as a general lack of convincing evidence for her theories. Doctor T'Soni is currently petitioning the Morrigi Confederation for access to several Morrigi ruins and historical sites. The Confederation has yet to respond to these requests. _


	13. Hivers (Codex)

_Ah, the Hivers. One of my favorite races that I have just not found a way to get more attention before now. Tarka and humanity can always be counted on for an action scene, and the Liir's genocide and psychic voodoo make them way too interesting to skip. The Morrigi are out in the Terminus doing something, but they had their moment too (which largely consisted of them showing off, freaking Crows). The Zuul...well,I'm saving them for something special. So where does that leave our beloved bugs? _

_About to kick the metaphorical hornet's nest, that's where. But that's next time, and I want to make more progress on one of my other stories first. So have a look at the Hiver Codex entry instead. The standard bio and political stuff will be boring for anyone already familiar with SotS lore, but as usual, fun politics come at the end. As always, reviews are appreciated, both for this and other chapters._

_*Edited to more accurately reflect Hiver language and culture*_

* * *

_"Great. Another race of giant bugs. At least they don't have FTL, or we'd have go uplift the Krogan all over again. Maybe the Tarka will be up to it, if they don't mind getting their balls cut off afterward."_  
-Matriarch Aethyta

_"There's a Nesting Fleet coming? Well, shit. I better start looking for a new colony... Yeah, go ahead and laugh. You won't be laughing when they finally show up." _  
-Anonymous

**Hivers**

The Hiver Imperium is the first insectoid race encountered by the Council races since the Rachni, and the Children, as they call themselves, are still attempting to overcome some of the stigma placed on them by their similarity to the Council's ancient enemy. Like the Rachni and krogan, the Hivers are explosive breeders. Unlike the Rachni, where only the queens are sentient, all Hivers are intelligent and capable of making their own decisions. Hivers are masters of genetic engineering, and will specifically produce offspring for different environments, such as improved musculature for heavy gravity worlds, or the ability to survive in a poisonous atmosphere. Most Hivers reach maturity in about 8 years, and can live anywhere from fifty to four hundred years, depending on their castes.

Hivers have two major quirks that set them apart from other insectoid species. The first is their amazing sense of smell. Like elcor, much of the subtlety of Hiver speech comes from the pheromones they release. These pheromones are used for everything from courtship to idle communication, and as such Hivers have extremely sensitive 'noses'. Hivers have demonstrated an ability to identify an individual's birthplace based on the scent of their intestinal flora, and can instantly identify females based off the estrogen they produce. The other quirk of Hiver biology is their brains. A great deal of long term and short term memory is stored in crystalline form in the brain of the Hiver. After the Hiver's death, these memories are retained for several days. Should the crystals be ingested by a Hiver female, that female can 'resurrect' the fallen Hiver, bestowing the memories of the fallen into a new body. This form of rebirth is considered to be among the highest honors that can be bestowed upon a Hiver, and in extreme cases, Hivers may even be elevated to a higher caste, including to Princehood.

Hivers are divided into three classes, each with their own unique physical traits: K'en, Ri', and T'cho. The most common form of Hiver is the K'en, or Worker, making up 70% of the species. K'en stand at around one and a half meters tall, making them slightly shorter than races like turians, humans, or krogan. Physically, K'en bear a strong similarity to Keepers, though the Hivers often state that this is like saying that batarians bear a strong similarity to humans. K'en are tasked with everything from cleaning to science to construction, and are in almost every way as intelligent and independent as the average member of another race. K'en are highly sought after by corporations for their powerful work ethic, though like most Hivers they are almost never found outside their own territory.

Ri', or Warriors, are the second caste, making up 25% of the population. Ri' show the most amount of physical diversity of the Hivers, with some not even standing a meter tall, and others reaching almost 3 meters tall. Ri' are bred for their roles, and are specifically assigned tasks that are the most dangerous. Soldiers, hazard specialists, and other such personnel are exclusively Ri'. Though they can theoretically live for fifty years or more, most Ri' do not live past thirty five due to their dangerous lifestyle. Despite this, Ri' embrace their way of life, and consider it an honor and privilege to die for their mothers. Due to their fearlessness and martial skill, many Ri' currently serve in C-Sec as riot police or special weapons operatives. Ri' are specifically bred for ambition and aggression, and it is no surprise that all Hiver Spectres have been members of the Warrior caste.

The T'cho class is divided into two halves: Princes and Princesses. While all K'en and Ri' are genetically male, they are born sterile. Only Princes have the ability to reproduce. At three and a half meters tall, they are physically intimidating, and are also born with 'dueling blades', sharp projections on their second limbs that are normally found on Ri'. Princes are also the most independent of the Hivers. K'en and Ri' are bound to their mothers, but Princes are free to roam the galaxy, seeking out new mates and shifting their political alliances at will. This degree of independence has made Princes the easiest of the Hiver castes to relate to, and the popular drama _Royal Blood_ following the legendary Prince Rizokis of the Nine Hatchings has been well received by Citadel races. Interestingly, it is not as popular among Hivers, who claim the director misses the point of Rizokis' story.

Princesses are the rulers of Hiver society. Workers and Warriors are fanatically loyal to their mothers, and even Princes often find it uncomfortable to go against their mother. Due to their leadership and breeding roles, Princesses are rarely seen outside of their own territory. Inside their territory, however, their rule is absolute. At four meters tall, Hiver Princesses are the largest variety of Hiver, and are very striking to look at. Historically, Princesses have fought massive civil wars attempting to claim the title of Queen. Only the Queen may breed more Princesses, and is a pseudo-divine figure among the lower classes. The Mother-of-All is the supreme leader of the Hivers, and none would dare question her rule.

Hiver society revolves around the breeder caste. Though K'en and Ri' all maintain a degree of independence, only in the case of extreme and obvious madness would they even think of going against their mother's will. Hivers are also loyal to their fathers, though not to the extent that they would be to their mothers. Breeder Hivers are renown for their skill with intrigue and politics, and such contests are a common way to raise one's status among other T'cho.

Hivers have a well deserved reputation for culinary excellence, and many of the best chefs on the Citadel are Hivers. Due to their large numbers, food is always carefully rationed, so Hiver dishes are heavy on presentation and usually make the most out of every bite. A common trick for Hiver Ri' is to engage in drinking contests with other species, especially with substances like ryncol, as their bodies are completely unaffected by alcohol. Instead, they achieve a similar affect by consuming dairy products.

Politically, the Hivers have something of a dark reputation. Though their ships were not present for the initial confrontation with the Council following the Human/Turian war, both SolForce and the Tarkasian Empire were quite obvious in their treatment of the Imperium as a weapon of last resort. The potential for a vicious war of expansion, such as was fought against the rachni or krogan, remains a concern to this day. The Hiver's advanced knowledge of genetic engineering and high mutability also makes them virtually immune to artificial methods of population control such as the Genophage.

Such concerns have largely been settled, however. The Hiver's reliance on slower-than-light drives for transport to new systems soothed many who thought of the Hivers as the new Rachni. Citadel star charts have directed the once-feared Hiver Nesting Fleets toward uninhabited systems, and the Imperium has shown no desire to expand their borders through anything but peaceful exploration. Though the Hivers were initially very against the Citadel treaty, as they saw mass effect technology as their chance to finally obtain a faster-than-light drive, their complaints have quieted in recent years.

Turians find the Hivers to be one of the easiest species in the Orion Arm to get along with. Hivers have a long tradition of service for the greater good of the whole, a philosophy the turians share. They find the division between combatants and civilians to make much more sense for Hivers than for other races, likening it to their own relationship with the volus. Hivers tend to find turians a bit odd. Why not put everyone to work where their talents would be most suited, instead of forcing everyone to play Warrior? Despite this, their loyalty and community spirit is refreshing compared to the independence of races like the Tarka and salarians.

Salarians are the closest the Council races get to understanding what the gender and parental relationships of Hivers are like, but the similarities between the two species has just served to push them further apart. Both races have little to no sex drive to speak of save in exceptional circumstances, and an extremely limited number of females that reproduce in large batches. Reproduction is handled politically in both species. But Hivers are mystified, and somewhat scandalized, that salarians have such a distant relationship to their mothers. Salarians in turn find Hiver family loyalty to be unsettling and evidence that they aren't as far from the rachni as they claim to be. As another species with explosive breeder potential, Hivers feel the salarians have no right to judge them for their own reproductive methods, and the fact that the salarians are a respected Council race while they have had to overcome leftover rachni-stigma for decades has only made this worse.

Asari are an interesting problem for the Hivers. While nothing about asari culture or reproduction is specifically appalling to Hivers, they are unsettled by the possibility of a race comprised of only females. With so many Princesses, how does anything get done? No wonder they value their mothers so lightly. For the asari, they dislike the Hivers for a simple reason: it is impossible for a race of genetic females to feel fully comfortable around a race that is biologically programmed to kill anything with estrogen. Action against Eclipse mercenary groups swiftly showed the asari this uncomfortable quirk of the Hivers, and they have not been able to fully relax since. While truthfully, Hivers are not in any danger of randomly going berserk when a woman walks into the room and are quite in control, even in battle, the rumors die hard, and videos of Ri' brutally slaughtering Eclipse sisters in close combat have not made this any easier.

Interestingly, the Hivers have formed an odd friendship with the quarians. Both races still suffer from negative stereotypes due to their species, despite the best attempts of various groups to offer assistance. Quarian community spirit appeals to the similarly motivated Hivers, and both groups are used to making the most out of limited resources. However, the Hivers and quarians seem to have agreed that this kinship is best felt at a distance. Hiver colonies have no real use for additional laborers, and their resources are often already stretched thin keeping up with their extensive populations. As such, the Migrant Fleet has yet to make any documented visits to a Hiver system.

The Hivers have no strong feelings about the hanar or volus one way or the other, though on a personal level most Hivers find the volus interest in trade and economics to be somewhat perplexing, given the Hivers' usual internal focus in economic relations. This is not to imply that the Hivers do not have an economy or trade, merely that it is usually handled by T'cho, with K'en and Ri' only serving as intermediaries. As the first species encountered that can understand and respond to elcor scents, Hivers are often very close to their elcor neighbors. The ponderous and conservative elcor often have little else in common with the focused and energetic Hivers, but this has not stopped many elcor from treating Hiver K'en like extremely hyper little brothers.

Hivers and krogan do not get along. Krogan do not respect Workers, finding them too frail and weak for their tastes. Though Ri' often have many of the same biological traits that krogan do (redundant organ structure, increased aggression, armored bone structure), this has not created any companionship between the two. The disorganized structure of krogan society, as well as their tendency for backstabbing, is repellent to Hivers. Krogan have been known to try an relive the 'glory days' by fighting Hivers as a stand-in for the rachni. Noted mercenary Urgnot Wrex was quoted as saying,

_"Hivers. Heh. Council's just scared because they don't have us to stomp their bugs for them. Yeah, the warriors are big, but a few shots from a Graal and they go crunch. Actually kind of fun to watch. In a century or two the Council will come crawling back to the krogan begging us to save them again. Assuming there are any krogan left by then."_


	14. Royal (Story)

_Well, I really meant to publish another chapter for _Embers of Chaos_ before I started writing this, but what can I say? This was way more fun to write. As mentioned previously, this is the first real story snippet, and while it's not as long as some of my other ones, I think it works. So sit back and watch as the Hivers take a trip to Omega, and decide to break all the rules. _

_Also, Aria is a pain in the ass to write. I did my best, but it's really hard to capture her mix of suppressed rage, confidence, and pure arrogance. Plus I've never actually played the Omega DLC, which would really have helped with this one. So let me know how I did!_

_On a totally unrelated note, I've had a few people ask me how the SotS ships match up with their Mass Effect counterparts. So I've taken the liberty of creating a chart for you that can be found on my profile page._

_Shortly after first contact, the Orion Races realized just how vast the size difference was between Council ships and their own. So they did some redesigns, effectively adding the equivalent of a second mission section and doubling the size of their ships. The original size is also included in the chart, for your reference. _

_The chart is based off a different one, created by Euderion. Go look at his stuff on DeviantArt, it's completely awesome. You'll note that his has several ships I edited out, since they don't appear in my story (mostly different Reapers). I left in the Normandies and Alliance cruiser/dreadnought from ME 3, just so you get a good idea of how SolForce ships are different from Alliance ones. Link to the original image can also be found on my profile page.  
_

* * *

"Your visitors are here, Aria."

"Thank you, Garka," the unofficial queen of Omega supplied dryly before turning to her other guest. "I think that's your cue to leave, Mongkha."

"Of course," the Morrigi replied, unwinding himself to snake toward the door. "Please, think about our proposal."

"Sure," Aria replied in a tone that indicated exactly how likely she was to do as he asked. Not bothering to glance at her new visitors, she continued. "So what does the great Princess Fire Sky want from Omega?"

The new party, that had to awkwardly skitter to the side to allow the Morrigi passage, consisted of a trio of Hivers, their exoskeletons dazzling in a mix of blue and orange. Two hulking Warriors stood in the front, easily filling the private room Aria had reserved with their bulk. Behind them, dwarfed by their size, was a single Worker, his spindly arms filled with electronic equipment.

"You are well informed," one of the Warriors buzzed, moving to one side to allow the Worker passage. Unbidden, he scurried forward and began setting up his electronics. Garka made to stop him, but Aria waved him off. "But you will have to ask our Mother that question yourself."

The Worker's equipment hummed to life, projecting the flickering image of a massive insectoid head that was at least the size of Aria's torso. She almost waved it off as a cheap intimidation tactic, but from the size of the Warriors, this was just a life-sized image of Fire Sky's head.

"I greet you in my name and the name of my sons, Queen Aria," Fire Sky clicked, her mandibles adding odd inflection to some of the world. "I trust you received my gifts?"

"Your air filters? Eezo would have been more valuable, but I'm sure the some of the people in the slums will appreciate the fresh air," she answered in a disinterested tone. "I know a bribe when I see one, Princess. What do you want?"

"Straight to the point? Very well," the Princess said, her face unreadable. "The Imperium is beginning a sensitive project. We would like your assistance with its implementation."

"And by sensitive, you mean illegal?" Aria asked with a smirk. "You have my attention. What exactly is so illegal the Hiver Imperium has to come all the way to Omega?"

The Worker activated his omni-tool and scurried forward, the holographic image of a Kowloon transport hovering in the air. The small creature pointed, and a new shape appeared, almost like a large bug clinging to the bottom of the ship.

"You want…a ride?" the asari asked, finally realizing exactly what the schematic represented.

"By the terms of the Citadel Truce, the Hiver Imperium is forbidden from constructing or operating any ship using a mass effect core. However, there are no provisions preventing us from hiring independent contractors to haul specific cargo to uninhabited systems and leave it there," Fire Sky explained, face assuming what Aria thought might be an expression of smug amusement. It was hard to tell. "Once there, we can open a gate and bring the rest of our ships through."

"If this isn't actually against the terms of the treaty, why are you here?" she asked pointedly, knowing there was more to it. "Go hire a volus merchant ship or something."

"The Council will naturally attempt to plug their oversight when it becomes public knowledge. While we can stall them, in the end, they are the ones that make the laws. All they will require is some legal justification to make it seem as they are not deliberately targeting us, and this opportunity will disappear. Even if they do not, they can deploy Spectres and other wet-works assets against us, destroying our Gate Ships before they have a chance to reach their destinations."

"I still fail to see how I should care about any of this. You want a smuggler? Hire one. There are a dozen different ships on the station right now that would be happy to help."

"Smugglers are notoriously fickle," Fire Sky answered, her distaste obvious. "They would happily betray us if they thought it more profitable to sell us out to the Council. But they would never dare cross the Queen of Omega."

"You want me to front for you?" Aria asked incredulously. "You seriously overestimate the value of your air filters."

"Obviously, we would pay in materials far more valuable than simple air filters. For example, we have only limited use for element zero, so I'm sure some of what my children mine can be sent your way."

"My answer is still no. I don't do politics, I don't take sides. I didn't get to rule Omega by painting a massive target on my back for the Spectres," the asari replied flatly. "I have enough enemies as it is."

"It would appear your reputation is undeserved," the Hiver Princess said in a dark tone. "Had I realized the Queen of Omega was a coward, I would not have wasted my time."

"Call me a coward again and I'll send your minions back to you in pieces," Aria snapped back instantly. "Your plan is foolish, and I will have no part in it. Go back to your caves, Princess."

"A pity. I had hoped for a partner in this," Fire Sky said far too casually. "But a vassal will do."

The Hiver Warriors moved like lightning, unfolding omni-blade on both their left and right arms as they slammed into Aria's guards, pinning them to the walls with the glowing blades hovering inches from their victims' throats.

"That was a mistake," the asari stated in a soft tone, rising to her feet and surrounding herself with a biotic glow.

"The mistake was yours," Fire Sky stated, completely ignoring the implied threat. "You believed my request was anything but a courtesy. I am a Princess of the Hiver Imperium. You are a glorified gangster pretending to the title of queen. And you are about to find out the difference between your title and mine."

The terminal next to Aria's couch chimed, and the face of a worried turian appeared, entirely on cue.

"Aria, six Hiver cruisers just appeared from behind an asteroid! They are approaching on an attack vector!"

"Target them with the defensive guns then!" she snapped, in a tone that indicated it should have been obvious. "If you want Omega, Princess, you'll have to send more than six of your little cruisers."

"Will I?" Fire Sky asked. "Your defenses seem to be taking a very long time to power up. My ships are almost in range."

"Grizz! Why aren't the defense firing?" Aria snapped, though she already knew what the answer would be.

"Someone cut the power!" the turian replied, looking at something just off screen. "No response from anyone stationed at the power conduits. I've already sent teams to investigate."

"You won't win," Aria stated, returning her attention to Fire Sky. "Even if your infiltrators kill my response teams, you can't possibly fight all of Omega."

"We don't have to. By the time your men retake the power stations we have seized, my cruisers will have disabled your defenses. From there, it's only a matter of how long you think your station will survive a sustained bombardment. Then I will go to the next pirate leader, and use you as an example of exactly what happens to those who think refusing me is the 'prudent' choice."

"Your mother is leaving you to die," the asari pointed out to the pair of Warriors. "You can't beat me and she knows it. She doesn't even care."

"It is our glorious privilege to die for our mother," one of the Warriors replied simply. "Would your children on this station say the same about you?"

"It appears my ships have entered combat range," Fire Sky said in an offhand tone. "Shall I tell them to open fire? The choice is yours, Aria. I have all day. You will submit to my demands. The only question is how many people have to die before you do."

Aria let out a cry of frustration before disappearing across the room in a flash of biotics. She reappeared next to the pair of Warriors. Before they could react, she jumped up into the air and smashed one biotic fist into the head of the nearest. It immediately exploded in a spray of gore. The Warriors partner instantly slit the throats of the men it was holding and swung one of its two blades at Aria's head.

She rolled backward, just out of reach of the blade and gestured, biotics flaring around her. The Warrior shot upward, smashing heavily into the ceiling. Then he was thrown downward, just as swiftly, crashing into the floor with enough force to snap several of his limbs and leave the metal floor stained with blood. Aria gestured again, and the Warrior repeated the process. She didn't cease until the Warrior's body stopped twitching.

Finally, she pulled the pistol off her hip and turned to face the Worker, who appeared to be frozen in utter fear. Realizing what was about to happen, he rushed for the door, only to be shot twice in the head before he even got close.

"Was that tantrum truly necessary?" Fire Sky asked, completely unfazed by the death of her sons. "My ships won't wait much longer. Hurry and make your decision."

Aria took a deep breath and shot a murderous glare at her aide and guards, who took the hint and hurriedly left the room. She took another calming breath and returned to her seat.

"Fine," she finally spat. "I'll find you your damn ships. Tell your ships to get the hell away from my station."

"I have no intention of sending my cruisers home," the Hiver replied with a smug tone. "Tell me, Aria, have you ever heard the human legend about the Sword of Damocles?"

"No," Aria snapped, brow furrowing in irritation again.

"It says that every Queen lives with a sword hanging over her, suspended by just a thread. It could fall and kill her at any moment, should she make even one wrong move," Fire Sky explained, her buzzing tone bordering on gloating. "Those cruisers are your sword, Queen Aria. If our plans are leaked, if our shipments are sabotaged, I will hold you responsible. And I will tear your station down around you, level by level."

"Are you finished?" Aria asked in a bored tone. "You have your damn ships. Stop wasting my time."

"Contact me when my ships are ready. Until then, I bid you farewell. Your Majesty."

The hologram disappeared, leaving the last mocking title hanging in the air. Aria waited a moment, then snarled and sent the communication device flying into the nearest wall with her biotics.

"Garka! Get your worthless ass in here!" she snapped, rising to her feet. The batarian obediently entered the room, respectfully waiting for her command. "Find Mongkha and tell him I'm starting to rethink his proposal. Then get me Mordin Solus."

Garka hurried out of the room, leaving Aria to stare at the bodies that littered the room in brooding silence.

"Don't fuck with Aria," she told the dead Hivers before turning on her heel and stalking out of the room, letting the heavy door slam shut behind her.

_One month after Princess Fire Sky deployed several cruisers to Omega, five of these ships returned to Hiver space, several showing signs of energy weapon damage. Shortly afterward, Morrigi traffic to the station increased by almost 300%. Inside sources have reported that much of Omega's defense network has been overhauled to include Orion Arm energy weapons, and a Monitor Station is under construction at a nearby asteroid. No trace has been found of the sixth Hiver cruiser, which is still missing. _


	15. Tarka (Codex)

_Codex time again. Good news though: the next story chapter is already done! I just need to go through and edit it, and it'll be finished. So not quite as long a wait as usual for the next chapter. I can hear you rejoicing all the way over here. _

_Today we get to the last of the core SotS races, the Tarka. I've given these poor bastards a bit of a short stick in my story so far because they make such good antagonists. They're my go-to for big dumb muscle, and they really shouldn't be. They're a very deep culture, much more than they appear at first, and are actually the best fit for the Mass Effect universe. Most of the roles humans fill in Mass Effect are currently being filled by Tarka in this universe. Of course, the Tarka are big on ambition, and aren't going to settle for Associate Race for very long, but at least they have the sense not to whine at the Council for a spot. _

_On a related but unrelated note, did you know that Arinn Dembo (lead writer for SotS and all-around awesome person) is giving away PDF copies of the new SotS lore books for $20 if you support her Clarion West Writer's Workshop charity? I've seen some of the stuff that's going into that book, I would give a freaking arm for one of them. The only other way to get one of these 300 page monsters was if you donated over $125 to the Ground Pounders crowd-funding drive (which is now closed, so this is probably your last chance to get one). If you will excuse me, I need to go see if I can find someone who will buy my kidney. $20, gotta get $20... _

* * *

**Tarkasian Empire**

_"Take the all the overamped aggression of a squad of marine cadets, inject it into the bastard love-child of a gorilla and a crocodile, then hand it a plasma cannon and a warp drive. That's the Tarka."_  
-James Vega

_"Tarka have a reputation for being highly aggressive thugs, much like the Krogan. They have this reputation because they want it. It makes people underestimate them. That alone should tell you all you need to know about their race."_  
-Matriarch Benezia

The Tarkasian Empire is a civilization that is older than it seems. Much like the Morrigi, the Tarkasian Empire began their expansion much earlier than humanity or the Liir. However, a mysterious incident caused this old empire to collapse almost overnight, driving Tarkasian society back hundreds of years. However, the Tarka have since recovered, and their current empire is even larger than it was previously.

Physically, Tarkasians share an outward resemblance with asari and humans. They are slightly larger framed, and are the only Citadel race to possess fully prehensile tails. These tails are always well muscled, and are often used as weapons in melee combat. The primary difference between Tarkasians and other bipedal races is their method of reproduction. When born, Tarkasian males are sterile. It is only through the consumption of unfertilized eggs produced by females (known among Tarka as 'A Lady's Favor') that males can become fertile.

Once they have consumed enough eggs, a male will undergo a process known as the Change. Once the Change is complete, the male will have gained around 200 kilograms in mass and will have grown approximately 50 centimeters in height. This physical change also stimulates hormone production in the male, rendering him fertile, as well as causing a massive spike in aggression and ambition. Changed males are instinctively repelled by one another, and brawls between Changed are common and often destructive. Changed males also have a very charismatic effect on male Tarka that have not undergone the change, and are easily swayed by them. For this reason, Tarka females are usually the ones that are responsible for restraining the more impulsive males.

Tarka society is divided into numerous castes, each with their own hierarchies. Movement in these hierarchies and castes is very fluid, as ambitious Tarka often strive to replace individuals who have become complacent in their positions. The Imperial Caste is the ruling caste and consists of the families of various Emperors and the Supreme Commander. The Military Caste consists of the Tarka military, and is commanded absolutely by the Supreme Commander. The Gutter Caste consists of the working class of Tarka society. Many castes have their own specific language they use to converse.

Tarka are very communal, living in large social groups rather than in individual mating pairs as most other species do. These social groups raise children as a unit, and most Tarka have a mother and several 'aunts' and 'uncles' rather than the traditional father/mother pair. Changed males often have very little personal connection with their children, as their mood swings and aggression make them both disinterested in parenting and dangerous to be around children. Tarka remain in an egg for the first year or two of their lives, but are active and intelligent even during this time. They are even capable of communicating with the outside world via a language known as "Egg Knock Code", which was for some time used as a form of universal language for the Tarka.

The Tarkasian Empire is nominally led by an individual known as the Supreme Commander. The Supreme Commander is the leader of the Tarka Military Caste, and wields absolute authority over all matters of war and defense. The Supreme Commander also largely dictates foreign policy for the Tarka, but has limited control over internal matters. The Nine Emperors, a council of the most powerful leaders in the Empire, set internal policy. Unlike what the name would suggest, Emperor is not always a hereditary position, and several are religious leaders or other powerful leaders.

Tarka have adapted well to Council space, and can be found in all walks of life all across the galaxy. Since coming to the Citadel, the Tarkasian Empire has begun a period of rapid growth. No longer restricted to the Orion Arm, many new planets have been colonized, and political tensions with their neighbors in the Orion Arm are at an all time low. However, this has caused some social unrest, as Tarka males have found fewer opportunities to prove their value to females and become Changed as they had in the past. Similarly, the focus on peaceful coexistence rather than conflict has aggravated many Changed, who have little patience for diplomacy.

To combat this restlessness, Tarka in the military caste have begun joining military organizations in large numbers. The Blood Pack in particular have begun using Tarka as squad leaders. They are stronger and more intelligent than vorcha, but have a tendency to naturally defer to krogan officers due to their resemblance to Changed males. The mercenary group known as the Silver Spears was founded by a Tarka, and remains populated almost entirely by Tarka. Mercenary work is a good way for Changed males to let out their aggression, and allows younger males to try and prove their worth through combat. Females often join to supervise the males, and are highly prized for this ability.

The Tarka gender dynamic has caused a friendship to develop between the Tarka and asari. Tarka find the idea of an all female race to be odd, but their general lack of aggression makes sense from a Tarka perspective. Asari find the passionate Tarka culture and their communal living to be very interesting, and it is not odd to find asari or Tarka living together peacefully. Changed males have acquired a very negative stigma for the asari, however, as the asari's universal attractiveness often finds them the target of unwanted attention from the powerful males.

The Turian Hierarchy has an uneasy relationship with the Tarkasian Empire. Tarka maintain a very pragmatic approach to combat that often matches the turians'. However, Tarka often scoff at turian honor. Dying for the cause is what the other side does! Tarka find the turians very similar to humans in size and stature, but prefer their plate-like skin to the soft tissue of humans. They also tend to be of the opinion that there are far too many adult males in the turian military. How does anyone know who is supposed to be in charge? Turians often find themselves the butt of Tarka jokes, something they find less than amusing. C-Sec detective Garrus Vakarian has been overheard saying of the Tarka:

_"I don't care how big he is. If he calls me Var Kitty-Bird one more time, I'll shove a stun rod so far up his ass his teeth will glow. And what does Var Kitty-Bird even mean?"_

Salarians often feel uneasy around Tarka, for good reason. Tarka naturally defer to females or larger males, and the salarians have few of either. Tarka find salarians to be sneaky, slimey and completely untrustworthy. Almost everything about the salarians is strange to them. At least the Liir have the decency to be giant fish. For all their racial prejudice, the Tarkasian Empire maintains a healthy respect for the Salarian Union, especially for their ruthless practicality when it comes to making war. There isn't much honor to a decisive first strike, but honor is useless if you're dead.

The krogan have no official diplomatic ties to the Tarkasian Empire, though on a personal level, the krogan do not get along well with Tarka. Tarka view the krogan as an entire race of Changed males, and as such were not surprised to learn of the Krogan Rebellions and the Genophage. The krogan's state of perpetual conflict makes perfect sense to the Tarka (too many Chiefs, not enough Braves), and their smugness about this fact often leads to violence when the krogan do not share the Tarka's perspective. Krogan also bear a strong physical resemblance to Changed males, which leads to an entirely different form of conflict.

The Tarkasian Empire's colonial expansion has placed it in indirect conflict with the elcor and hanar, and is a continuing source of political discourse. The hanar have formally petitioned for Council intervention in preventing Tarkasian mining vessels from harvesting resources in systems claimed by the hanar, but thus far the Council has taken no action against the Empire. Relations remain good with the volus, however, as trade between both sides has been quite profitable.


	16. Den (Story)

_Remember when I said I keep using the Tarka as meaty thugs, and I should really stop because they are way more complex than that? Well, boy are my cheeks red. In my defense, the reason the poor bastards keep getting hit by the Worf Effect so hard is because in Mass Effect, krogan are generally treated as only slightly more dangerous than a well-trained soldier. Wrex and Grunt are awesome because of their own skill, not their race. In order to even become a Changed male, you have to be awesome, even if its only a little. So Changed males are more threatening. Plus I remember mowing through krogan like they were going out of style in my ME games, so something that doesn't instantly signal 'Eh, I could take 'em' to readers is nice. _

_This chapter has some familiar faces, and officially does what readers have been begging me for ever since I started this story. Welcome to the Antimatter Age, everybody! This chapter kicks off the SolForce plot-line, and will further show how different they are from how the Alliance. How did I do? We'll be coming back to the Hiver plot after our next Codex entry, but for now, sit back and enjoy the carnage. Also, despite the familiar setting and characters, do not think we are following the Stations of the Canon. There will be no trip to Virmire, and there is no one on Therum to save. We are officially off the rails. _

* * *

"In science news, Tarkasian scientists have just revealed their first fully stable antimatter reactor. This announcement comes on the heels of similar announcements made by SolForce and the Liir last year. With almost all races in the Orion Arm now utilizing antimatter as their primary power source, how will this miraculous new technology affect galactic politics? Renown physicist Aleta will provide the answer in an exclusive interview this evening."

"I wish they would turn those damn news terminals off," Quintus complained, the bony mandibles by the turian's jaw flexing in irritation. "It's the same damn thing every day."

"No new information has been provided by SolForce regarding the mysterious incident at the unveiling of their new flagship, the _Leviathan_," the asari anchor continued, oblivious to her detractor. "The ship, naval yard, and all the visiting dignitaries, including famous diplomat and matriarch Benezia T'Soni, are still missing, with no new clues as to their eventual fate."

"It's some kind of malfunction," Sar Thok'Orr replied, tail twitching in irritation. "I saw a keeper mucking around with the wiring last week."

"Damn bugs are more trouble than their worth, I'm telling you."

"I don't know, they'd probably taste nice with a side of butter," Sar remarked, and chuckled at his own humor. His turian companion did not seem nearly as amused.

"You know, I never asked," Quintus said, more to drown out the news caster than anything else. "What the hell is a Tarka doing as a security guard? I thought you Orion races kept to yourselves and didn't associate with us Citadel types."

"That's not true," Sar replied indignantly. "I mean, yeah, a human wouldn't be caught dead at an alien bar, the bugs are too busy worshiping their mothers to bother working for someone else, and only Father Pale-Eye knows why the Liir do anything, but we Tarka are just as social as anyone else!"

Quintus began to reply when suddenly both their omni-tools triggered at once.

**[ Chora's Den has enacted** **lockdown protocols. All personnel are reminded of the defense clause in their contracts, and are advised to be on their highest guard.]**

"Defense clause?" Sar asked in confusion as Quintus unfolded a pistol and began scanning the pathways leading to the club warily.

"You didn't bother to read your contract all the way through?" the turian asked with dark amusement. "Oh, you poor idiot. Why the hell did you think this shit job paid so well?"

"I just-"

"Forget it. The contract says that in the event of a lockdown, all employees must defend this location to the best of their ability, and that any individual attempting to enter is to be shot on sight. You might want to get out your gun. They don't call for a lockdown unless they're expecting company."

"Too late," called a voice, and figure dropped out of the sky. It human, but was encased head to toe in dull black armor with blue accents that glowed dimly in the pale light. On its back was a jet pack that roared dully in the background, causing the human to hover several inches over the walkway. "Now, why don't the two of you just get out of our way, and I won't have to scramble your brains?"

The turian raised his pistol instantly, but the human was faster. He pulled up a hand and light surrounded it. Not the flowing blue glow of biotics, but a brilliant white and blue light that stabbed out of the human's hand like daggers. The dull blue accents of the man's armor flared with an identical light, as did the space where his eyes should have been, the shining light bright enough to force Sar to blink against the glare.

In that instant, Quintus burst into flame. The turian screamed and flailed, running for the nearby fire suppression system. Just as he reached it, the human pulled out a laser pistol and fired it into the fire suppression canister. It exploded, throwing the turian across the room and coating him in a fine layer of dust.

"Damn, Alenko," said a new voice as another form descended. This one was huge, and even its massive jet pack could not keep its feet from crashing heavily into the deck with a ringing clang. Its armor was also black, but it lacked the glowing accents, instead favoring slim outline of white and pink. "When you kill something, you don't screw around."

"He's not dead," the human replied with a shrug, and Sar thought his voice sounded male beneath the concealing helmet. "At least, not yet. If we get done quickly enough, C-Sec can fix him up."

The new figure simply shook its huge head, and even though its visor was equally opaque, the Tarka got the impression from its previous words that this massive human was actually female.

"You bleeding heart. What about the Tarkodile over there?"

Sar suddenly realized that he had been frozen in place ever since they appeared, that he hadn't even drawn his weapon yet, and that he was facing two heavily armed humans, one of which was psychic. After he came to these realizations, he decided to take the only logical course of action and began screaming.

"I can work with that," the smaller human said, and the stabbing light flared around his hand again. The terror Sar felt increased exponentially, crashing over him like a wave. He saw white, and the next thing he knew, he was curled up under a table inside the club, his tail curled protectively around his body. Tears were flowing freely down his face, and his pants seemed strangely damp.

He had just a moment to wonder how he had gotten there when the roar of gunfire filled his ears. The young Tarka peered around his table and saw he was crouched in the midst of a massive battle.

The two humans had obviously followed him in his terror-fueled dash into Chora's Den, and had promptly begun slaughtering the other employees. Across the bar from him, Sar could see the female shoot forward on her jets, smashing into a salarian with her shoulder and smearing him across a nearby wall before firing a shot from some kind of fusion weapon, flashing a nearby turian's torso into ash in an instant.

The male was hidden behind a nearby table. As the Tarka watched, he peeked over the edge of his cover and that strange light shone from him again as he gestured. Another Tarka, just a few years older than Sar himself, suddenly jerked and began screaming incoherently, firing his gun randomly at everyone and everything in the room.

A heavily built krogan stomped in from the back, a large shotgun clutched in his hands. He fired a shot directly into the berserk Tarka's chest, killing him instantly before turning to fire a burst at the human male, who ducked back down behind the table.

"Williams! A little cover would be appropriate right now!" the male called, trying to slide around the edge of the table, only to be greeted with another blast from the shotgun. "We aren't all wearing Brawler armor, you know!"

"On it!" the female's distorted voice called, smashing a table out of her way with one fist before firing a shot at the krogan. He leveled the armored human with an arrogant glance and didn't even bother trying to dodge. He immediately regretted it when the shot crashed into his shoulder, melting off half of his face and blowing him across the room. Miraculously, he began feebly trying to lift himself to his feet, even though his burnt skull was clearly visible, and the scorched crater in his chest was impossibly deep.

With a sharp crack, a laser shot punched though the side of krogan's head, and he fell lifeless to the floor. The male human lowered his pistol and nodded thanks toward the female before ducking back into cover, letting her continue to wreak havoc throughout the room. Most weapons seemed to just fizzle against her shields, and those that got through splashed harmlessly off her armor. Her return fire was much more effective, and her aim was deadly.

Within a few minutes, there room was finally silent, save for the crackle of a few small fires. It smelled of ozone and burnt flesh, and the tread of the humans' metal boots rang loudly in Sar's ears. He prayed that they would move on to whatever they had come for and leave him. He had escaped them before, but he doubted his chances of doing so again.

"Hey, looks like our scaly friend made it," the female's voice called, and Sar's face fell. "I was sure he would have gotten himself killed in all this mess. I guess his lizard gods must be looking out for him."

"He's a person, Williams. And he can hear you," the male scolded, plugging a new energy cell into his pistol. "It's alright now. You can come out."

"I don't think that's going to work," the female said with amusement as Sar shrank back further into his hiding place. She stomping across the room to tower over him. "I'll get him out."

"Stay away from him!" a deep voice boomed, and a rocket streaked across the room, smashing straight into the female's chest. Her shields fell with a flickering crash as she was blown off her feet from the impact. As he saw where the rocket had come from, Sar's heart soared with hope.

Almost dozen figures walked into the room, led by the huge form of a Changed male. The newcomers were resplendent in silver armor, and many clutched spears or long rifles with bayonets. The leader dropped the smoking form of a large rocket launcher and held pulled a vac hammer off his back, his mighty tail thrashing the ground angrily.

"The Silver Spears…" Sar gasped in amazement. Tales of the famous mercenary group were told to children even in their eggs. He had never even dreamed of seeing them, much less having them come to his rescue.

"Fist," the female human snarled, clutching her fusion gun tighter. "I should have known a species traitor like you would have hired someone like them to save your hide."

"As if I would just sit quietly while SolForce goons dragged me off to have my brain turned inside out," said a new human. Sar had missed him before, awed by the appearance of the Spears. The new human was a male, and for all his bravado, seemed to be making very sure the Spears were between him and the other humans. "Though I am curious. What does Black Section want with me?"

"It doesn't have to end this way," the black-armored male said carefully, not leaving his cover. "Give us Fist. He's not worth any of your lives."

"My contract with the Shadow Broker says otherwise," the Changed male retorted, spinning his hammer around in his hands. "Five to one odds, human. Not so good for you, I'd say."

"The odds aren't as good as you think they are," the female wheezed, pulling herself to her feet. A scorched dent had appeared where the rocket had impacted her armor, and a thin trickle of blood was leaking from it. "Last chance. Hand over the traitor, before we take him."

"By all means," the Tarka answered with a smile full of teeth. "Try."

Without warning, a trio of missiles roared out from behind the Spears, each seeking out a different target. One smashed into the back of the leader, while the other two forked out to strike a pair of spear wielders. One of the Spears, slightly more aware than the others, tackled Fist to the ground a split second before the missiles went off. The others weren't so lucky.

Then everything started happening so quickly. Sar only caught glimpses. One of the Spears tossed across the room by a telekinetic blow as the male's glowing armor deflected bullets before they could even impact his shields. The female human wrestling the Spears' leader for his hammer, powered armor shrieking against the Tarka steel. A bleeding Tarka female leading two of her companions into the dust cloud left by the missiles, prompting a symphony of gunshots and metallic bangs that shifted suddenly into silence.

And it was over. The female lifted herself heavily to her feet, her hands covered in the blood of the Changed male. The psychic emerged from his cover, exhaustion evident in his posture and a bloody hole in one of his legs. The Spears lay dead around the room, some killed outright by the missiles, others in the fight that followed. Fist lay on the floor, gaping in horror at the devastation. Sar could sympathize. He imagined he had a similar expression.

As the two armored figures began to close on him, Fist seemed to panic, leaping to his feet and dashing away, into the fading dust cloud that hid the rear entrance to the club. A metallic gauntlet shot out of the cloud, grabbing him by the neck and arresting his flight. The gauntlet belonged to another black suit of Brawler armor, this one with red and white trim. It stomped out of dust, dragging Fist along with it.

"Commander," the female said in greeting, pulling herself up to salute. "You have good timing."

"The missiles might have been a bit much though," the male pointed out, glancing at the utterly destroyed interior of the club.

"Please don't kill me!" Fist begged, tears leaking out of his eyes. "I'll tell you whatever you want to know! Just don't kill me!"

"Good," the new figure said calmly, its voice so heavily distorted by its helmet that Sar couldn't even guess its gender. "What can you tell me about the _SFS Leviathan_?"

"Commander, we've got incoming," the male announced, glancing at something on his omni-tool. "Looks like C-Sec heard the ruckus. Two assault transports inbound."

"We should go," the new human stated calmly, slinging a protesting Fist over one shoulder before walking out, followed by the others.

"Ignus!" they said together, and their jet packs fired to life, carrying them into the sky and away.

Sar finally relaxed, his tail uncurling in relief. He had been spared. He sucked in a breath for what felt like the first time since the humans had arrived, and let his tail uncurl. The young Tarka had just enough time to climb out from under the table before a dozen heavily armed C-Sec operatives burst into the room and shoved their guns into his face.

_The incident that would the media would dramatically name the Chora's Den Massacre remains a mystery. The only surviving witness's initial testimony was inconclusive, largely due to severe psychic trauma, and SolForce has publicly denied having any operatives active in the area. C-Sec was prevented from further interrogating the witness due to political pressure from the Tarkasian Empire, and he was released into their custody. A formal investigation is ongoing. _


	17. Zuul (Codex)

_Second to last race codex, and sad to say most of you SotS fans will be disappointed. The Zuul haven't had much interaction with the Council races, for good reason, so they don't have much of a codex entry. However, even though this entry is my shortest yet, it was fun to write as an exercise in lying my ass off. A vast majority of the information presented in this codex entry is either drawing incorrect conclusions, completely wrong, or flat out lying to the reader. Now, how much of those lies are me lying to you to hide plot points, and how much is the Council lying to hide certain important facts about the Zuul? That's up to you to figure out._

* * *

"Ah, the 'Zuul Threat'... We have dismissed that claim."

-Councilor Sparatus

**Zuul**

The Zuul are a race of bipedal mammals known both for their extreme sexual dimorphism and for their powerful telepathy. They are second only to the Liir in terms of psychic potential, and like the Liir, it plays a large part in their social dynamics. Unfortunately, due to these social dynamics, Zuul are unable to participate in galactic diplomacy, and their constant warring with the other races of the Orion Arm have reduced them to control of only a handful of systems with only token forces to defend them.

Female Zuul are unique among the known races in that they are not actually sentient. They are intelligent and clever, but they are not capable of higher reasoning. They are extremely powerful physically, however. An average Zuul female stands upright at well over two meters tall, and is capable of running on all fours or walking on her hind legs to attack with its forelimbs. Female Zuul are deadly combatants in their own right, however with direction, they are capable of wearing armor and wielding complex weapons like firearms.

Male Zuul provide this direction by means of direct telepathic control. While females have no noticeable psychic talent, male Zuul are extremely powerful telepaths. Males naturally gather a collection of female servants known as a coterie, both to assist them with basic tasks and to act as guards. Zuul are able to use their telepathy not only to give commands, but also to retrieve information from those they can contact. In this way, a single male Zuul can know what is going on at several different places at once.

Physically, male Zuul are unimpressive, with little muscle mass and standing at roughly the same height as a human or turian. All Zuul are born with a set of punch claws. In female Zuul, these are extremely dense and powerful, capable of even cutting through metal armor. In males, they are often underdeveloped. However, with their coterie to assist them, male Zuul are deadly combatants. Male Zuul are capable of directing and controlling their coterie even at great distances. The exact range of their control is unknown.

Zuul create a social hierarchy based on their powers of telepathy. If they can control another Zuul, they are superior to that Zuul, and he must obey his new master or face deadly reprisal. The supreme leader of the Zuul is known as the GreatFather, and while the extent of his control is unknown, it is believed to be extremely impressive.

As the Zuul began venturing into space, they discovered that their powers of control extended to other species as well. Unfortunately, due to their social structure and the inherent vulnerabilities of most individuals to psychic control, they instinctively classified the new species they encountered as lower lifeforms, and began viciously enslaving them, stealing what technology they could find and tearing the knowledge of how to use it from the minds of those they captured.

At first, the Zuul were content to remain on the fringes of the Orion Arm, attacking only lightly defended worlds and targets of opportunity. However, as their strength grew, they became bolder and began attacking more populous worlds. In the end, all four Orion Races united against the Zuul, driving them completely from Liir and Tarkasian space. Only a few worlds are still known to be controlled by the Zuul, and SolForce and the Hiver Imperium continue in their attempts to wipe out the remaining Zuul.

Shortly after the Citadel Treaty was signed, the Council sent a diplomatic team to meet with the Zuul, in an attempt to negotiate a cease fire between the Zuul and the rest of the Orion Arm and to assess the potential of offering the Zuul associate member status. Negotiations ended poorly when the Zuul attempted to board the diplomatic vessel by force. The SolForce and turian escort ships were forced to open fire on the Zuul in self-defense, destroying the Zuul ships and ending negotiations. Since this incident, Zuul space has been under quarantine by order of the Council, and a full fleet of turian ships remains in patrol around this area to prevent civilian traffic from entering.


	18. Infiltrator (Story)

_So from the shortest chapter of this story to the longest. Weird how that worked. Not something I intended, but it did seem to work out well in the end. So this time we finally get to take a look at some more real protagonists, who will continue to pop up and make a difference as our story progresses. This chapter also features our first original protagonist, instead of borrowing from Mass Effect's crew. Well, I say 'instead of', though it's much more like 'as well as'. _

_I kinda worried as I was writing it that this story dragged on too long. I could probably have hacked it down to half its length, but that would have involved cutting out some fun parts toward the end. So I figured to risk it. What the hell. So how did I do? As usually, reviews are appreciated, and if you have questions I'll do my best to answer them._

* * *

"You wanted to see me?" Prince Stone Mind asked evenly, staring at the holographic images of the Citadel Council.

"Yes, we did," Councilor Tevos began. "We have been getting some disturbing reports from the Terminus Systems, and were hoping you could shed some light on them."

"The Hiver Imperium has had very few dealings with the Terminus, Councilor, but I would be happy to assist you however I can," Stone Mind replied politely, though he knew exactly where this was headed.

"The STG took these images two days ago," Councilor Valern said, pressing several unseen keys. Three images, each of a different freighter, appeared. The outline of a Hiver Gate ship could be clearly seen clinging to the hull of each one. "Would you care to explain them?"

Inwardly, the Prince sighed. The freighter plan had been foolish from the beginning, too much long-term damage for too little gain. But Princess Fire Sky had gone ahead with it, and Her Majesty had let her, over his objections. Sometimes, he wondered if their Mother didn't have too much faith in his skill as a diplomat.

"I see nothing odd about these images," he replied, making a show of examining them closely. "They appear to be ordinary freighters."

"And what of the Hiver Gate ships attached to them?" Councilor Sparatus snapped, mandibles flexing angrily.

"That would be their cargo, Councilor," the Hiver answered. "I fail to see anything odd about it. Many freighters carry oversized loads clamped to their hulls."

"But they do not carry them to uninhabited systems to jettison and abandon, ambassador," Valern pointed out darkly. "Do not play games with us. We know exactly what you are doing. You have violated the Citadel Truce."

"No we haven't, and you know it. Let us drop all pretense and act like reasoning adults, shall we? You know as well as I that the FTL limits in the Citadel Truce were included to specifically prevent my people from expanding. The only reason you are upset is that we found a loophole."

"The limits were a test, ambassador," Tevos explained, amber eyes narrowing. "To see if you would be able to respect the wishes of the galactic community and to prove that your intentions were as benevolent as you claimed. A test that your people have failed."

"We should not have to prove ourselves to anyone!" Stone Mind snapped, wings buzzing furiously. "All my people want, all we have ever wanted, is the same opportunities in this galaxy that this Council has granted to every other race they have encountered. And we have been denied time and time again because of our appearance.

"SolForce constructed a super-dreadnought and then lost it, taking several major diplomats with it! The Tarkasian Empire is expanding twice as fast as the Hiver Imperium. The Liir have actually attempted xenocide, and are in the middle of the largest military buildup since the Zuul Wars. And yet you wish to bully and reprimand my sons and brothers, who have done nothing to you! We have never offered you violence, we have obeyed all your laws. We have gifted you the best and brightest of our sons, and they have served you with honor and distinction!"

"My children should not have to suffer for your unwarranted paranoia!" Stone Mind hissed, mandibles snapping on every word. "I will say this slowly, as you all seem to have trouble comprehending it."

"We...are not…the Rachni!"

"Then perhaps you should stop acting like them," Sparatus answered calmly. "We have been more than fair. Our explorer missions have already found several dozen planets within a few light years of Hiver space that would be suitable for colonization. We gave you their locations. You had no reason to seek out new colonies on your own."

"Spare me," the Hiver Prince said, somehow give his buzzing voice a sarcastic edge. "You gift us the scraps from your tables and act as though we should be grateful when you hoard the largest and richest worlds for yourselves. We are not the quarians. You cannot offer us false charity and fake smiles in the hopes we will go away!"

"The worlds you were given were optimally selected for your people based off climate and atmospheric composition," Tevos responded. "The star maps we gave you were intended as a gift, not an insult."

"Then perhaps you should have read the mineral surveys as well, Councilor," Stone Mind replied skeptically. "Ships are not built out of dust and sand."

"Your current fleet size is more than sufficient for your needs," Valern stated flatly. "Your continued obsession with military expansion does little to convince us of your sincerity, ambassador."

"We share a border with SolForce and the Zuul. When your people stand between the armor and the blades, then you can lecture me about what sized fleet is 'sufficient'. Until then, Councilor, we will continue to build as many ships as we require to defend ourselves and our children."

"Your claims of defense are undermined when over half of the ships you build are immediately deployed on colony missions."

"And we return to the Rachni. Councilors, I have had enough of your disingenuous assertions. Unless you can overcome your fear of a race that has been dead for over a millennia, we have nothing more to discuss." With a finger, Stone Mind ended the connection, banishing the holographic images of the Council instantly. Sighing, he stretched and turned his huge form to step off the transmitter platform. "Well, that could have gone better."

Even though the conference room assigned to the Hivers in the Citadel Tower had been specifically constructed with his frame in mind, the Prince still had to duck his head as he walked out through the doors. His two personal guards, resplendent in their white and grey patterned chitin, left their posts by the entrance and fell in swiftly behind him.

"How did it go, Lord Father?" one asked as the trio made their way through the fountains and trees that dotted the top floor of the Citadel Tower. Even though most bystanders saw them coming and quickly shuffled out of their way, it was still slow going due to their large size.

"Not well, Rizokis. I just hung up on three of the most powerful people in the galaxy," Stone Mind replied honestly. "Damn Princess Fire Sky and her foolish ambition! We should have waited. Even a decade or two would have been enough to get the salarians on our side at least."

"You hung up on the Council? Won't that impact us politically, Father?" the other guard, Ykezet, asked.

"Hopefully not. I played the victim card, and I suspect I threw enough of a tantrum that they'll at least think twice before levying us with sanctions, provided we stop using those FTL freighters. I think I just spent all my political capital doing it though. Your mother is going to have a fit."

"Mother will understand. As will Her Majesty."

"Well, if the Queen asks, don't tell her I hung up on the Council," Stone Mind said conspiratorially. "Calculated political move or not, it sounds kind of juvenile when you tell someone else."

The two Warriors chuckled, a clicking buzz that made their ceremonial shields and blades rattle against their armored hides. They suddenly stopped when a commotion broke out in front of them. The pair surged forward in an instant, shoving pedestrians out of the way and shoving their shields between their father and the possible threat.

"Peace, my sons. It is only Detective Vakarian," the Prince ordered, and the guards relaxed slightly, but still insisted on standing in front of Stone Mind as they approached the scene. "Detective, what seems to be the matter?"

"I caught this one trying to sneak her way into the Council Chambers. This level of the Tower isn't even open to the public," Garrus explained, a struggling quarian female in a purple suit pinned to the ground beneath him. "Nothing to worry about, Ambassador."

"They have you hunting down trespassers, Garrus?" Stone Mind asked, his wings fluttering to indicate his surprise. "That's beneath someone of your skill."

"Don't I know it. Executor Pallin wasn't exactly happy with my performance on my last assignment. Something about ignoring half a dozen regulations and direct orders to stand down. But I got the guy, and apparently I'm too useful to fire, so he transferred me here for a few weeks instead," the turian replied dryly, trying to lever both of the quarian's arms behind her back to place holographic restraints on her. One arm twisted lithely out of his grip as the Prince watched, elbowing him in the face. "Well, you're flexible, I'll give you that. But give it up already. You aren't getting out of this."

"You don't understand!" the quarian wailed, still struggling to get free. "I have information for the Council! They need to see it!"

"Uh-huh. You're the third person who's told me that today," Garrus said, finally getting the quarian's arms pinned enough to use the restraints on her.

"Wait," Stone Mind said, peering down at the quarian. "The Tower isn't easy to break into. This girl went through a lot of effort to get here. She wouldn't do that just for nothing."

"People try to break in here all the time," Garrus argued, pulling the quarian to her feet. "Everyone thinks the Council should be notified about everything, or that their personal crisis deserves special attention."

"I would still like to hear what she has to say," the Hiver responded. "So, little ghost mole? What do you have to say for yourself?"

"I-wait, ghost mole?" the quarian asked, confused.

"I apologize. It's a bit of an affectionate nickname my people have for yours," Stone Mind explained. "On our homeworld, the most common form of mammal is a species of burrowing rodent. When we encountered humanity for the first time, we called them moles because of this resemblance. Your species has a superficial resemblance to humanity, but because of your suits, you have no odor. So you are ghost moles: moles that can be seen but not smelled."

"Not seeing the resemblance, personally," Garrus put in from where he stood, making sure the quarian couldn't dash off. "Asari and batarians look more like humans than the quarians do."

"Quarians are the only other race besides humanity that has hair," Stone Mind reasoned. "Admittedly, apart from facial structure, mammary glands, and the bipedal design, quarians are very different from humans, but it's a racial nickname. I imagine the individuals who came up with the name didn't really bother to research much about quarian biology before giving it to them."

"Lord Father, perhaps we should return to the topic at hand?" Ykezet reminded respectfully.

"Agreed. Now young lady, what is your name?"

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya," the quarian answered, someone confused by the direction the conversation had taken.

"Zorah? I met your father. A good man, but…driven," Stone Mind finally settled on, before again returning to the original issue. "So Tali. What is this emergency that drove you to break into one of the most secure areas on the Citadel?"

"Well, I was on my Pilgrimage," Tali began, staring up at the towering Hivers with a mixture of confusion and awe. "You know what those are?"

"Of course. I'm an ambassador. Knowing alien customs is part of my job, after all."

"I was traveling through the Cresent Nebula when I came across a modified geth signal. Since the geth never travel outside the Perseus Vail, I went to investigate. And I found something." She tried to move one of her arms, but the restraints prevented it. "I'm sorry, I need my omni-tool. Can I?"

Stone Mind fixed Garrus with a look, and the turian sighed heavily.

"You're taking responsibility for this one," the detective said, and moved to take off the cuffs. Before he could even get close, however, they disintegrated into motes of light. "…nevermind then."

"It would seem our new friend is rather gifted when it comes to technology," Stone Mind said with a pleased buzz as Tali shot the turian a smug look and pulled up her omnitool. With a gesture, she opened an image and showed it to them.

It looked like a standard geth trooper platform, but only superficially. A series of swept fins sprouted from the base of its spine, extending all the way to its head. The usual gray geth armor had been traded for shining blue, and glowing red lines of light crisscrossed its form like veins. The generic white 'flashlight' that served as the geth's face had also been modified. Now the light glowed an angry red, and featured a gray metallic iris.

Instead of holding a weapon, the geth seemed to have a glowing energy weapon built directly into one arm, while the other featured a complex, five fingered hand instead of the usual three fingered talon. The arm with the hand also featured a glowing tech shield that appeared to be sprouting from its forearm. The exposed tubing that often hung from the bodies of geth troops were gone, and the rounded edges of the geth's original form seemed to have shifted into something more angular and sleek.

"This is what I found. It's a new model of geth platform," she explained. "My people have been keeping tabs on the geth ever since we lost Ranoch. Their platforms have changed, but they've all kept to the same general format as when they were created. This one was new."

"They're upgrading," Garrus noted grimly. "New armor, energy weapons… That new optic layout looks like it would give it better visuals as well."

"That's not all," Tali added swiftly, sounding nervous and more than a little breathless. "It was…smarter, somehow. It's hard to explain if you weren't there."

"Please try, Tali," the towering Prince urged gently as his sons crouched down to better examine the image she was displaying. "It could be important."

"Alright," she agreed reluctantly. "The geth aren't standalone AIs. They're a system of networked VIs that can act like as an AI when enough are networked. But that means that at least some of their movements are predictable, especially when there aren't very many of them. This one didn't move like a geth. It didn't have any of their usual routines or patterns. It acted…alive."

"Were you able to destroy it?" Rizokis asked, reflexively flexing the arm that had his Ri attached as he sized up the geth platform.

"No," Tali said, hanging her head slightly and sounding dejected. "I tried to sneak up and take it out with my shotgun, but it must have noticed something was wrong. Two more platforms like this one showed up, so I snuck back out before they could find me."

"Disappointing, but sensible," Rizokis agreed. "Only humans would be mad enough to throw themselves against superior odds for no good reason. What model of shotgun do you use?"

"I just have an old Executioner I got when I left for my Pilgrimage," Tali said, rubbing her hands in embarrassment. "There were a lot laying around after the Extermination, and the Fleet picked most of them up cheap."

"Don't be embarrassed, it's a good gun. A bit small for a Hiver, of course," the warrior joked, spreading one of his hands to show its large size. "Still, it's got decent stopping power and not bad accuracy. The heat sink doesn't totally suck either, which is good."

"If the two of you are done talking about your guns, can we get back to the matter at hand?" Garrus asked, and both Tali and Rizokis looked somewhat embarrassed at this rebuke. "The fact that the geth are upgrading is a serious problem, but I'm still not sure it warrants breaking into the Tower to try and talk to the Council."

"There was something else," Tali explained, glowing eyes glaring defiantly. "Remember the signal I followed to find the geth? Well, I traced where the signal was going. The geth were transmitting to the Citadel. And something was responding."

"Oh, by Her Majesty's royal ass," Stone Mind swore, glancing around hastily. His sons seemed more appalled at his language than by whatever had startled their father. "Tali, close that image, right now. We need to take this somewhere more private. Everyone, into my transport. You too, detective. This makes things very complicated."

Stone Mind's transport was roughly the size of a sky truck, and was built with a Royal Hiver and his or her escorts in mind. The exterior was shaped almost like a large beetle, with the familiar plates of yellow and brown Hiver armor ridged over the top for protection. The interior, in contrast, was quite spacious and luxurious. Tali and Garrus still found themselves standing and holding onto various bits of furnishings as the craft took off, however, as the Hiver vehicle was not equipped with seats for bipeds.

"Alright, I think it's safe to talk now," Stone Mind said once they were safely in the air.

"You think the Citadel has already been infiltrated by the geth?" Tali asked, glancing out the window at the traffic zipping past around them.

"It's the only explanation for that signal you detected," Garrus agreed. "I'll notify my superiors. If the signal hasn't stopped, we can probably-"

"No, Garrus. You can't tell anyone about this, especially C-Sec," Stone Mind interrupted.

"You think the geth have already compromised C-Sec?"

"It's the only thing that makes sense," the Prince stated. "Think about it. The geth can hardly expect a standard platform to just walk through the Citadel without anyone noticing or caring. If they sent an infiltrator to the Citadel, it would be in digital form."

"A computer program," Tail realized. "Geth runtimes on the Citadel's local servers and not on a standard mobile platform. But why can't we go to C-Sec or the Council?"

"If you were a geth infiltration program, what would be the first computers you would try to infect?" Garrus asked rhetorically. "C-Sec has the most complete data on the station, traffic going in and out, immigration, trade… You would have your finger on the pulse of half the galaxy."

"And would be instantly warned when someone started investigating any of your activities," Stone Mind added. "We can go to the Council with this either. Due to some recent actions I'm not at liberty to share with you both, the Hiver Imperium…lacks credibility. And we can't risk telling any of the other ambassadors."

"Why not?" Tali asked in confusion. "If we all brought the evidence to the Council, they couldn't ignore it."

"The humans have a saying," Stone Mind clicked, wings flittering against the wall of the transport. "Three can keep a secret if two are dead. Morbid and exaggerated, as humans usually are, but the idea has merit. SolForce will insist the station be locked down until the threat is found and dealt with. The Tarkasians will just go with whatever they think the Council wants so they keep overlooking how fast the Empire is expanding into hanar and elchor space. And the Liir already know."

"They do?"

"Of course. Tell her, Citadel."

_Hello, Tali'Zorah. I am the Eldest of the Citadel. I'm sorry our first meeting had to be under such strange circumstances._

"Keelah!" Tali squeaked, glancing around in shock as if trying to find who spoke. Then she looked out the window, down into the lake of the Presidium. "Was that a…Liir?"

"A Liir Elder," the Prince corrected. "She's the oldest Liir on the Citadel. From what I understand, she's actually relatively young to be an Eldest."

_Stone Mind is correct. I am only a little over five hundred. There are asari on this station that are older than I. But I am still the Eldest, and I speak for the Citadel._

"Freaking witch whales…" Garrus said, sighing. "And to think I thought C-Sec would be simpler than when I was on Khar'shan."

_I would offer to assist you directly in tracking down the geth infiltrator program, however our telepathy has very limited effectiveness against machines, and my Steel Singers have all been reassigned to our ship foundries. _

"Don't think that we aren't going to have a talk pretty soon about just how many ships your people are building, either," Stone Mind reminded. "We've seen the designs for your new battleriders. And the interesting changes you've been making to their control formats."

_That is a concern for another day, Prince. For now, we should focus on the problem at hand. The Council will not believe you if you bring this evidence to them now. Your people's actions at Omega have lost you too much credibility, and your proof is not conclusive enough for them to order anything more than a C-Sec investigation, one that will certainly alert the geth program long before they find it. You must disable the infiltrator before we can bring any information to the Council, and if we want the Council to take any sort of strong action against them, we will also need proof that they present a clear and present danger to Council space. _

"Increasing their military strength and putting a digital spy in the Citadel wouldn't qualify as a clear and present danger?" Tali asked, confused.

"You just described exactly what every single race in known space has been doing for the past decade," Garrus countered. "If the Council were willing to go to war over something like that, the galaxy would be drowning in bodies."

"Exactly," the Hiver agreed. "Besides, irritating as they can sometimes be, the Council could be right about this. Upgrading your technology and planting spies to keep track of a nation that considers your whole race to be an illegal abomination is good strategy. It doesn't mean that they are planning any kind of offensive action."

"So how exactly do we go about investigating all this?" Garrus asked. "If we can't use C-Sec or the Council's resources, we're severely handicapped."

"We can't directly use C-Sec, but we can still use them peripherally," Stone Mind reasoned. "That's where you come in, Detective. You have the ability to go places we can't, and the authority to access information that would be restricted to anyone else. You may not be able to do it in any official capacity, but I assume from your record that you aren't averse to bending the letter of a few regulations."

"I've been known to use my own initiative more than my superiors would like," Garrus replied with a turian grin. "But there are still some places I won't be able to investigate without drawing too much attention to myself. The worst will be some of the shadier sections of the Wards. If they saw a C-Sec officer randomly checking consoles, I'd probably wind up dodging gunfire all the way back out. That'll be hard to explain to the Executor."

"Which is why you won't be handling that part of our investigation," the Prince responded. "Tali'Zorah, would you be willing to assist us in this matter?"

"Of course. The Council may not take the geth seriously, but my people do. We can't let them infiltrate the Citadel."

"Then I will let you handle investigating the Wards. Once we have a chance to further analyze that signal, we can start flagging suspicious terminals. With luck, we'll have the program isolated within a few weeks. From there, Tali and several of my more technically gifted sons will be able to come up with a virus to purge and contain the infiltrator. With luck, we may even be able to take enough of it intact to use as proof for the Council."

"You can't be serious," Garrus interjected, glancing warily at the quarian next to him. "She's clever, I'll give her that, but she's just a girl. You send her down into the Wards on her own and she'll get eaten alive."

Tali looked offended and like she was about to argue against Garrus' statements, but Stone Mind held up a hand.

"I've already thought of that, Detective, which is why she won't be going alone," he said, pulling up his omni-tool and pressing several icons. "Obviously, my sons cannot accompany her, it would draw far too much attention. However, I have just authorized Tali as a licensed buyer for the Migrant Fleet."

"Buyer of what?" she asked, looking confused again.

"You now have access to Brother Peacemaker Armaments, and they were kind enough to gift you with several sample products, including a Rapachan Assault Flamer, as well as motorized joints for your environment suit, so you can actually lift it. I trust your suit is at least mildly flame retardant?"

Tali nodded in assent, her glowing eyes still wide in apparent shock at having been gifted such a lethal weapon.

"Excellent," Stone Mind stated with a contented trill. "I've yet to meet the street thug who is willing to casually pick a fight with someone carrying a flamethrower."

"Flamers aren't civilian legal, Ambassador. You can only carry one on the Citadel if you are a member of a military organization, or if your profession would otherwise require it," Garrus reminded. "C-Sec would arrest her within the first few hours."

"Then it is fortunate that I have also taken the liberty of listed our friend here as a Diplomatic Consultant to the Hiver Embassy. A position that gives her diplomatic immunity from prosecution, and also requires her to carry arms as part of her routine duties, by a strange coincidence," the Hiver clicked, pressing a few more icons on his omni-tool.

"Diplomatic Consultant?" Garrus asked. "I've never heard of that position."

"That's because I just made it up," Stone Mind buzzed in amusement. "But C-Sec can poke and fume all they like, it's perfectly legal. They'll know she's a spy, and I'll know she's a spy, but no one will be able to admit it. We'll have to throw in some decoy assignments to get their counter-espionage agents off the scent, of course, but that shouldn't be difficult.

"Detective, we will let you off here," he continued, gesturing down at the Presidium below. "It would probably be best if you had no more than casual contact with the two of us, at least until we have the infiltrator contained. Tali, I will arrange for quarters for you at our embassy, unless you have other lodgings?"

"I've just been staying at the Utilitarian Sanctuary down in the Wards," Tali admitted sheepishly. "Most quarians on their Pilgrimage stay with the Utilitarians."

"Well, I can't guarantee much of an improvement in terms of comfort, our embassy is rather Spartan by the standards of most Council races, but at the very least you'll be on the Presidium," Stone Mind said as the transport looped into a gentle descent. "I'll give you a chance to get settled today, and then we'll get started. The Citadel can act as our coordinator. No one on this station can intercept her telepathy, so it's as secure as it gets. Are you all on board with this?"

"Sounds way more interesting than chasing trespassers," Garrus said with a nod.

"Count me in," Tali added with a determined glare. "I want to make a difference."

_I will support you all however I can, until this threat is dealt with._

"Excellent. Then I suggest the two of you get some rest tonight. Tomorrow will be an interesting day."

_Since the inclusion of the Orion races and the advent of psychic research, cybercrime has risen steadily. The appearance of 'mecha empaths', especially among humans, Liir, and asari, have caused a great deal of stress for C-Sec and are often the source of the worst cases of sabotage and cybercrime. However, the number of rogue AIs discovered yearly has remained relatively stable throughout Council space since the Citadel Truce. To date, no rogue AIs have been discovered in the Orion Arm since the Via Damasco Rebellion. _


	19. Blue Suns (Codex)

_This codex will be a little different from my other ones. For starters, I didn't write it. This is a Guest Codex, written for me by a reader. The Poarter asked to write a entry on the Blue Suns, and I said yes. He came up with some really great ideas for them, way better than what I had originally planned, so here it is! If you like it, go check out his stories. As usual, reviews are appreciated. I may not have written this one, but I'm sure The Poarter would love the feedback. There are still more Codex entries to write, way more than I can possibly do myself, so if anyone else want in on this, just let me know. _

* * *

_"Never forget that conflict is always necessary. If you allude to war too greatly you make yourself too weak when something horrible happens. Never forget that asari. War is not kind, fair or glorious. But it is necessary."_

-Lieutenant Abishake Gangapurakan

_"The Blue Suns are meaner than we expected. Much meaner. Solforce can claim quite easily that they obey sentient rights and blame any discrepancy on rogue cells. The Blue Suns? For them anything's game."_

-Executor Pallin

**Human Mercenary Groups**

Human mercenary groups, unlike most species outside of the Orion Arm, are not monopolized. In fact by legal definition there are several million humans occupied in some form of mercenary work, most of whom are independently employed.

While this may seem astonishing to many, it is not to most scholars familiar with humanity and its history. Human psychology is based around individuality. This is further aided by the fact that humanity's population numbers over 50 billion on around sixty officially claimed worlds, allowing for a great deal of diversity.

During peacetime, humans focus their funding on a variety of issues such as social problems, trade, education, industry and healthcare, with a major focus on R&amp;D. Nevertheless humanity is known to spend a minimum of five percent of its GDP on military and defense even in peacetime, a far cry from the Asari Republic's tenth of a percent or Salarian Union's half a percent. However this is still a greatly reduced amount compared to the amount of military spending during war time.

As an incentive to recruitment, SolForce personnel are given a land grant on their colony of choice upon the completion of their tour. A minority of volunteers refuse such an offer however, instead choosing to use their skills in more "energetic" pursuits. Nevertheless unlike many other mercenary groups of other races, most human mercenaries maintain some form of loyalty to their home governments. This can be attributed to humanity's general xenophobic attitude to aliens, as human formed mercenary groups are ninety seven percent human on average. Attempts at bribery or other information gathering efforts targeting these mercenaries has a notoriously low success rate. The STG has publicly denied responsibility for any of these attempts. The Spectres declined to comment.

The largest human mercenary group in existence is the Blue Suns. Privately founded by an undisclosed backer and numbering at over seven hundred thousand full time members and over two million independent individuals suspected of affiliation with the group; the Blue Suns were justifiably considered the "Human Mercenary Kingdom" of the Terminus.

Having limited influence on many human worlds and several non-human ones, the Blue Suns run all kinds of operations in Council Space, the Orion Arm and Terminus Space. The Blue Suns is one of the largest mercenary organizations in the galaxy, rivalled in size by only by Eclipse, the Blood Pack, and the Silver Spears. The Blue Suns claim to fame is their high-quality equipment, including powered armour and cutting edge weapons, allowing them to achieve a kill-to-loss ratio higher than many of their competitors.

Many have postulated the theory that the Blue Suns' mysterious benefactor is in fact SolForce, and supported this by the Blue Suns' strange ability to acquire the latest weapons and armour, often even before it is regularly issued to SolForce personnel. Believers in this theory claim the Blue Suns are used to "bloody" troops and test weapons and tactics against their Council equivalents, as well as to participate in deniable black ops. SolForce has publicly refuted this claim.

Protocol in the Blue Suns is strictly followed with a complex ranking system for officers, junior personnel and logistics. The Blue Suns currently has over 15 different ranks for combat personnel, just 10 less than SolForce. Discipline is maintained through various methods from a reward system. However the Blue Suns also maintain discipline in a similar manner to their military roots. Executions of members responsible for various crimes are not uncommon. Typical execution methods include firing squad and 'pulling a Blasky', a slang term for being ejected into Node Space. Several smaller affiliates of the Blue Suns are rumoured to use more painful and brutal methods of execution.

Membership is almost exclusively human, although Tarkas and Morrigi make up a good majority of alien recruits. Blue Suns recruitment programs can be found on virtually every human world, though the scope and focus of these programs tends to vary. Due to their unofficial xenophobic policy, the Blue Suns rarely recruit from other races. Their recruiting base from humanity is often more than enough, though they have been known to accept alien volunteers that are capable of proving their skill and loyalty.

It is why the falling out between the two co-founders, Vito Santigo and Zaeed Massani, was such a major issue. Prior to the Batarian Extermination, Vito Santigo wanted to expand the Blue Suns recruiting pool to batarians and include slavery as a form of income. At this decision, Zaeed vehemently disagreed due to experience in combat against the Zuul and to worsening relations between the Orion Arm and the Hegemony.

While humanity in general did not interact with the batarians in great numbers, the Liir certainly did. Zaeed didn't want to risk issues being raised by the Liir, and to a lesser extent, humanity should the Blue Suns start recruiting batarians. Many of the Tarkas in the Blue Suns were dynamically opposed to the practice, as Tarkasian society believes slavery to be an abomination against the Gutter Caste.

While neither man could have predicted the Batarian Extermination, both had valid points. The Blue Suns organization had become so large that unless it was decentralized, resulting in various competing factions, it was at risk of collapsing under its own weight. Zaeed on the other hand advocated maintaining better public image and the philosophy of only recruiting 'trusted' races.

The inclusion of more neutral races like Morrigi and Tarka was sour compromise between the two men due to the risk of double agents, but batarian recruitment was what sparked the civil war. In less than a year Zaeed and Vito had made their divisions and sparked what was known as the "Blue Suns Civil War".

Contrary to popular belief not all species share the same definition about the scale of a war. What Humanity considers a minor war is anything that results in less than a million deaths while moderate size conflict can be classified as anything downward a hundred million. With Vito's faction unofficially backed by the Batarian Hegemony and Zaeed's backed by the Blue Sun's anonymous benefactor the conflict was bound to be bloody.

Thus began a prolonged proxy war for the control over the Blue Suns. Conflicts related to the Blue Suns Civil war touched almost ninety known worlds across the galaxy. This unprecedented scale of conflict brought the Council's attention to the issue, and almost resulted in direct turian intervention.

The Blue Suns Civil War brought to light many unpleasant facts about the mercenary lifestyle. Many did not consider how extravagant, intoxicating and depraving the lifestyle of a mercenary could make individuals. Drunk with the amount of power and free reign he possessed, Vito believed that he was the king of his own domain and answered to no one, and as the war progressed, many of his depravities were brought to light. Many major mercenary organizations were forced to improve their policies for "privateers" to improve their public image and distance themselves with similar rogue factions.

An example of such depravity was Vito's fondness for Tarkasian eggs. While the eggs have been known to create Changed Males they have various notable effects when eaten by other levo-based species. In humans, Tarkasian eggs act as a powerful steroid. This caused many outcries from Tarka in and out of the Blue Suns, costing Vito valuable support from the Tarka Suns and earning several punitive raids from the Silver Spears. However as war dragged on this was revealed as merely just a sample of Vito's activities. His descent into depravity and why it occurred is a popular subject for many psychologists to this day.

The Blue Suns Civil War lasted almost three years, but the Batarian Extermination finally proved to be Vito's undoing. His support quickly dried up as the Hegemony fell, and many of his new Batarian recruits succumbed to the Extermination Plague within the first few months. This resulted in Zaeed gaining the upper hand in the conflict and ending it on Zora with Vito's execution. The total death toll, including those lost as 'collateral damage', is estimated to number almost a million individuals, mostly in the Terminus systems.

After capturing Vito, it is rumoured Zaeed offered him a choice of death by execution, or to turned over to a nearby Freehold for trial. Throughout the course of the war, many of Vito's more criminal activities had been exposed, and many Freeholds have very draconian punishments for these crimes, especially slavery. Though the actual truth of this rumour is unknown, it is known that Vito was publicly executed by a firing squad twelve hours after his capture. Zaeed personally assembled the squad and participated in it himself.

To this day the Blue Suns are still one of the major four mercenary groups despite their diminished power base. During the Civil War, the other groups saw the weakness of the Suns and pounced, poaching many of the Suns long-term contracts and severely limiting their influence throughout the Terminus. Although splinter Batarian groups still remain, consisting of those that survived the Extermination Plague, the Blue Suns continue to number at almost five hundred thousand and the organization is currently growing swiftly. Only time will tell if they will return to their former glory.


	20. Wrecks (Story)

_Finally, a Tarka who isn't a thug for the protagonists to beat on! Yay for avoiding racial stereotypes... 19 chapters in. Oops. My bad._

_Anyway, this story chapter introduces our final protagonist, and kicks off the third plot line. It's also one of my longer chapters, so that's good. Is it just me or do the story snips just get longer as the story progresses? Interesting. I can't promise this trend will continue, but then again, I never intended this story chapter to be one of my longer ones either, so there you go. _

_As usual, thanks for reading, and reviews are appreciated! Also, bonus points for anyone who can spot the pun in this chapter's title. I just couldn't resist._

* * *

"You have no idea how disturbing it is to watch you do that."

"For a Spectre, you have a weak stomach," the Tarka told her companion as she slurped down the inside of another crab leg. "You could have ordered your own food, you know. I hear they make a good dextro sotswich here."

"I'm pretty sure I've lost my appetite," the turian answered with a dark chuckle. "Though I should have known she'd be late."

"Known who would be late?" a new voice asked as an armored asari walked through the privacy screen around their booth with a soft blip. "Nihlus, have you been telling her stories about me?"

"Nothing bad, I assure you," the Tarka said reassuringly. "Sara Thok'dur, Special Tactics and Recon. You must be the famous Tela Vasir."

"So you're his new protégé," Tela said with a smile, taking a seat across the other two. "Pleased to finally meet you."

"If you are done disturbing me with your eating habits, Sara, I think we can begin," Nihlus said calmly, activating the holographic display built into the center of the table. "Now, as I'm sure both of you are aware, the Council is getting relatively concerned about what the Morrigi are doing in the Terminus. All three of us were assigned to this problem, and if either of your briefings were like mine, it would appear they are sending us in blind."

"That sounds about right," Sara agreed. "I was only briefed about the situation on Omega. The Council assigned me to investigate the new Morrigi construction there."

"And I was assigned to try and get an accurate force count for their defenses and shipyards in the Terminus," Tela said with a frown. "Guess I must have pissed off a matriarch or two to get that crap assignment."

"As I thought. If we are all effectively working on the same problem, it makes sense to pool our resources. Are we agreed?" Nihlus asked, glancing at the other Spectres. When the two women nodded, he waved and an image of the galaxy appeared, with several areas highlighted with purple circles. "These are systems where I have confirmed Morrigi colonies."

He waved his hand again, and twice as many white circles appeared.

"These are systems with that have Morrigi fleets or Morrigi orbital defenses in place, but are primarily occupied by other races," he pointed out, gesturing at the new icons. "Omega makes their most recent, and spectacular, addition to this list."

"It looks like they're trying to settle the Terminus," Sara said, staring up at the map. "Which makes sense, I suppose. They declined a seat on the Council, and colonies in the Orion Arm are very hotly contested. SolForce usually claims most of them, damn Node jumping monkeys."

"There's more to it than that," Tela said with a shake of her head. "The Crows don't expand, they absorb. Look at this."

With a twist of her own omni-tool, a spider web of glowing white lines began to spread out from the marked purple and white systems, crisscrossing their way across the Terminus and extending through the Attican Traverse all the way into Council Space.

"These are all Morrigi trade routes," she explained, pointing at the new lines. "At this point, the Morrigi Confederation either directly controls or is indirectly involved with over half the trade in the Terminus Systems."

"This is very detailed information," Nihlus said, examining the map closely. "Where did you get this?"

"Let's just say I know a guy, and leave it at that," the asari answered with a dark smile. "I guarantee it's accurate, though."

"Then that's all I need to know," he said understandingly, letting the matter drop. "The scope of the Confederation's influence is somewhat daunting, however. Economic control rather than military control. Interesting that we haven't seen a corresponding spike in piracy, though."

"I can explain that one," Sara announced, and slid her finger along the silver bracelet on her wrist. A series of black dots appeared on the map, almost twice the number of other icons. "These are the estimated locations of battles between Morrigi forces and pirates in the Terminus Systems, including raids against pirate bases and convoy defensive actions. This data is from combined STG, Ranger, and Seeker intelligence reports, so it's about as accurate as we're likely to get."

"Well, they've been busy little birds, haven't they," Tela remarked, looking up at the map. "If we go by this-"

Whatever she was about to say was lost when the sound of several gunshots rang through the restaurant, penetrating even the opaque security barrier that was supposed to grantee the Spectres' privacy. In a split second, all three had gone for weapons, Nihlus unfolding a massive sniper rifle while the two women pulled out assault rifles. Wordlessly, the turian gestured at the barrier, turning its opacity one way to allow them to see out.

A squad of men in white armor with blue accents were moving through the restaurant, moving from privacy booth to privacy booth, deactivating the barriers and pulling out the occupants to throw them on the floor. Behind the men, a trio of hulking Brawlers suits stood on watch.

"They're looking for someone," Tela observed quietly, quickly slipping an armor-piercing mod into her weapon. "Us, do you think?"

"Who would try to take out a trio of Spectres with just three Brawlers and a squad of goons?" Sara wondered, tail twitching. "Then again, those look like Blue Suns. No one ever said monkeys were smart."

"Don't have the logo," the asari responded. "Maybe an affiliate. The Suns like to use those for deniable actions. Hmm. Two of those Brawlers look like they're carrying the standard Zippers, but that last one looks like it just has a heavy machine gun."

"This place is famous for its privacy. There are a lot of influential business people here. An alarm must have automatically triggered by now, and the authorities will be here soon. We should stay uninvolved if we can. Aha! Got it," Nihlus announced, and held up his omni-tool. "I've cracked their channels, let's see what they're saying."

"_Goddamn idiot, is what he is," _a gruff voice snarled over the hacked channel. _"Why the hell did I ever agree to take this job? Taking out Spectres is a job for a whole goddamn platoon."_

"_And your swearing is going to make things so much better, human?" _a gruff voice growled. _"I should have worked with the Silver Spears."_

"We're about to have company," Sara interrupted before they could hear more, pointed at a trio of men moving toward their booth. "I don't think staying uninvolved is going to be an option, even if we weren't the target. Anyone got a plan?"

"Tela, use your biotics for crowd control," Nihlus ordered, quickly surveying the room. "Sara, use your lightning blade to clear yourself a path until you can get clear. That Broma Dai of yours has decent armor penetration I hope?"

"Sure, but not enough to feel good about trading shots with a Brawler."

"That's why you're a Spectre. Once you're clear, you and I will take out the Brawlers from range while Tela acts as a decoy."

"Next time, you get to be decoy for the 75mm gauss spewing armored monsters," Tela grumbled good-naturedly as she raised her weapon. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Go!" Nihlus ordered, dropping the barrier and firing a shot from his rifle that took one of the Brawlers in the faceplate. The round smashed into the suit's shields and exploded, knocking the Brawler off its feet and causing the shields of the other two to flare as they absorbed the shockwave.

Even as the powered armor was falling, Tela vanished in a blue glow, reappearing in the midst of the nearest mercenaries with an explosion of force. The men were thrown from their feet, and she wasted no time in firing several quick bursts from her rifle into their face plates before they had a chance to rise.

Before Tela had even begun to move, Sara had already leapt over the side of the booth and was off running. She returned her rifle to her pack and drew the sword from her side in the same smooth motion.

By the time the mercenaries had a chance to realize what was going on, Sara was already on them. She dashed past the first one, wrapping her tail around his neck as she went and heaving him to the floor. The second she decapitated with a single swift stroke. As the first regained his feet, she spun like a dancer on one foot, slashing her blade across the center of his chest. The silver edge sparked off the armor, but its deadly lightning charge still sunk in, stunning the man and emitting a sharp smell of ozone and burnt plastic.

As the mercenary swayed unsteadily, Sara swept his legs out from under him with a low kick, then smashed her tail down on his neck with crushing force. The flexible silver plates covering her tail rang against the human armor, and the human construction lost. The man's neck caved with a meaty crunching sound, and the Tarka swiftly rolled behind a nearby pillar, just in time to avoid a hail of bullets from one of the Brawlers.

"Sara, we'll synchronize our attacks," Nihlus's voice said in her ear, and Sara noticed a shimmering in the air behind her. "I'll drop their shields, you finish them off."

"Ready when you are," Sara said, pulling out her rifle and wincing as a gauss round punched through the concrete two inches from her head.

With a crack, Nihlus reappeared several yards away as the nearest Brawler caught an explosive round with his face. Sara ducked out of her cover instantly, firing a silent burst of gauss flechettes into the suit's weakened helmet. The battered metal shattered under the impacts and the powered armor went down in a spray of blood.

"Flash out!" she yelled to her companions as the mercenaries' return fire began reducing her cover to so much drifting dust. Palming a flashbang grenade, she hurled it out behind her, closed her eyes, and waited. In a few moments, a deafening bang crashed against her ears, but she was ready for it. She slid to the side and started running, opening her eyes again even as the humans reeled.

By the time the enemy was moving cohesively again, she had already picked a new hiding place on the other side of the restaurant, carefully shrouded from view by an overturned table.

"Nihlus, I'm in position to take out the next Brawler," she reported sub-vocally, trusting her implants to carry the message to wherever he lurked. "Call the shot."

"The last Zipper, that thing will chew through our cover like it isn't there," Nihlus replied over the same channel. "Standby."

A second later, another of Nihlus's explosive shots cracked into the Brawler's helmet, and Sara obediently followed through with a series of flechettes. The man's head promptly exploded into red mist, and the suit fell lifeless. As she watched, Nihlus reappeared behind a pillar some distance to her left, ejecting a glowing cylinder from his rifle.

"What is that?" she asked, trying to get a bead on the last Brawler, who wisely seemed to be trying to keep his head down.

"Disposable heat sink," Nihlus explained, sliding a new cylinder into his weapon. "It's a new design specifically for high heat weapons like this one so the user doesn't have to wait so long for it to cool between shots. The salarians claim it will completely replace built in heat dissipation in a few years."

Sara chuckled and finally caught the last Brawler in her sights. And just like that, everything went wrong.

"Agh! Shit!" Tela cursed from across the building. "I'm hit! It's a sniper!"

"How bad?" Nihlus asked, but before she could respond, there was a roar and a krogan in red armor smashed into the turian's hiding place like a juggernaut. Sara responded instantly, opening fire on the krogan with her rifle, but he was apparently a biotic. Her shots chipped away his barrier, and she knew she would never be able to land a lethal shot on the krogan before he finished Nihlus.

Rolling out of her cover, she continued firing, but the krogan ignored her. Nihlus swung the butt of his rifle at his opponent's face, which the krogan easily blocked and responded by stomping down at the turian's face. The Spectre barely rolled out of the way, only to find himself looking down the barrel of the krogan's shotgun.

The krogan saw her coming at the last possible second. Just as his finger tightened on the trigger, Sara reached him, casting aside her gun to draw her sword. The charged edge swept toward his face, and he leaned out of the way, taking a long slash along his shoulder and the full voltage of the lightning blade.

"Back off!" he snarled as the electricity made his teeth rattle. He dropped a biotic blast at his own feet, tossing his foes away away. Sara landed on her feet and darted away, narrowly avoiding a shotgun blast.

"Go, I've got this one!" she shouted to Nihlus, who obediently vanished behind his cloak. The krogan chuckled at she dodged another round from his shotgun.

"You're good, princess," he complimented, narrowly rolling out of the way as Sara's blade slashed past his snout. "But I've beaten better. Even have the scars to prove it."

"Hold still," she snarled, eyes red and heart hammering in her ears as she pointed to the series of vertical scars near the krogan's right eye. "You can get a matching set."

The krogan smiled toothily and attempted to lift her with his biotics, but her blood was up now. She could practically feel the adrenaline from her heart's fifth valve, and everything seemed to move so slowly. Even as the biotic lift detonated and the krogan raised his shotgun, Sara was already dashing across the room. She could see he wasn't going to be fast enough. By the time he could aim his weapon, she would be on him, her sword at his throat.

If she had been anyone else, she wouldn't have seen it: a reflection from the rafters like light off of a scope. Trusting her instincts, she aborted her attack, throwing herself to the side just as a sniper round tore through the space her head had just occupied. A slender drell slipped down from the vaulted ceiling, his rifle already folding onto his back as he drew his pistol.

"We need to leave," the drell said calmly, forcing Sara back behind a toppled table with several accurate shots from his weapon. "The last Brawler has fallen. The other two Spectres will be finished mopping up soon. We cannot fight three at once."

"Fine," the krogan grunted, firing off another shotgun blast as he moved toward a window. "Never liked this job anyway."

Rolling out of her cover, Sara snatched up her rifle and began shooting at the departing pair, letting her shields absorb any return fire. The drell's shields fell with a shimmer, one of her flechettes cutting a bloody line across his face.

"Another day," he said serenely, a biotic barrier rising around him. He gestured, and a cluster of grenades dropped to the ground as he leapt through a shattered window. They exploded into several billowing clouds of smoke, and Sara swiftly lost the departing mercenaries in the cloud.

She dashed to the window, coughing on the choking smoke, but realized the futility as she reached it. The window led to a straight drop, aircar traffic racing past almost a hundred yards below. Turning away, she emerged from the cloud to see her companions had already finished their work, Nihlus's massive sniper rifle easily finishing the last fleeing mercenary.

The Tarka woman slumped to the floor, clutching at her chest as her heart rate slowly returned to normal. Using the Little Drum always put strain on her body, and she had heard many stories of warriors collapsing dead at the end of great battles when their hearts could no longer handle the stress.

"So they got away?" Tela asked, limping over to collapse next to Sara, a large clump of medigel fixed over a bloody hole in her armor.

"They did," Nihlus replied, sitting down on Sara's other side, one side of his face caked in drying blood. "I captured their faces, so we can track them down, but I suspect it would be futile. They will likely flee the planet."

"So we have no idea who they were, who sent them, or why they wanted us dead," Sara sighed. "Wonderful. Were there any civilian casualties?"

"Some minor injuries," the turian responded heavily. "They cleared out when the shooting started."

"Oh. Good."

"Weird to see the Suns working with aliens," Tela wearily remarked to no one. "They must have been desperate for bodies. I could probably have some of my sources track those two down eventually."

From somewhere behind them, there was a massive crash.

"What was that?" Sara asked, not bothering to look.

"One of the humans was using Inferno rounds," the asari replied. "The building's on fire."

"Oh. Okay."

The three Spectres sat together in companionable silence for a while as the restaurant began to leisurely burn around them. Then they glanced at each other and slowly broke into uncontrollable laughter.


	21. Morrigi (Codex)

_You have no idea how long I have been waiting for this moment. The race codex entries are a royal pain in the ass to write, and while I still think they add to the story, I'm thankful to finally be finished. Interestingly, in researching this entry, I discovered that I made several mistakes in my previous chapters. Specifically, the Morrigi were way too restrained in Crows. They are much bigger show-offs than I had originally written them. Also, it would seem that I've cast SolForce just a little too xenophobic for how they should canonically act at this point in history. I'll go back and fix both of those when I have the time._

_Anyway, here is the sixth and final racial codex entry: the Morrigi. __Also, on a totally unrelated note, I'm seriously considering rewriting the summary for this story. I was originally going for a rework of the narration for the original Sword of the Stars, but I'm not sure it works as well as it could. F__eel free to let me in on any feedback you may have for me, about this chapter and the story in general. If I'm going back to fix stuff, I might as well see what else I can tweak while I'm there. _

* * *

_"While you were still learning to spell your name, I was being trained to conquer the stars themselves!"_

-Tarl the Angled

_"The Crows are slippery ones. Oh, sure, they seem nice at first, but you've never seen one of their asteroid traps. You haven't seen legions of drones drag your ships burning into atmo. And those are isolated colony defenses. The ones they've forgotten about. Imagine what they could do if they started trying."_

-Admiral Anderson

**Morrigi**

The Morrigi are the oldest race in the Orion Arm, and are among the oldest known races in the galaxy, surpassed in age only by the asari. The Morrigi Empire once spanned the length and breadth of the Orion Arm, and recently recovered fossils indicate that they had influence in the development of Hiver, Tarka, and human culture. Records of an enigmatic race of traders known only as the Travelers indicate that the early Morrigi may even have had contact with the Council, though there are no records of contact with the Travelers after the Rachni Wars.

The Morrigi's massive empire crumbled practically overnight, however, due to an event known as the Suuligi War. Though the details of this event are still shrouded in mystery, it is known that the Morrigi were attacked and almost destroyed by the same species known to the Liir as Suul'ka. Only a handful of scattered fleets and colonies survived with what little technology they could still operate. Much of the Morrigi's former glory was lost in this disastrous conflict.

Biologically, Morrigi possess a variety of avian, reptilian, and mammalian qualities. They have four sets of limbs: two pairs of legs, a pair of arms, and a single set of wings. These wings are vestigial in female Morrigi, but are capable of limited flight in males. Morrigi have extreme organ redundancy, with four sets of lungs and hearts, as well as a pectoral girdle that functions like a secondary spine. Unlike with krogan, this organ redundancy is not designed for protection: these extra organs are required to maintain such massive bodies. Morrigi females can grow to be up six meters from nose to tail, while males are significantly smaller, with a maximum recorded length of three meters. Much of a Morrigi's length is taken up in its tail, especially for females.

This sexual dimorphism, though common in the Orion Arm, is actually artificial in nature. Morrigi culture dictates segregation based on sex: males take to the stars in great nomadic fleets, exploring and trading. Females remain behind, caring for Morrigi worlds and manufacturing new ships for the males. This division in living conditions for so many centuries has caused Morrigi males to become significantly smaller than females.

A natural form of dimorphism does occurred in Morrigi, however. Morrigi are naturally psychic, but not to the extent of the Liir. Instead, they possess a naturally occurring psychic glamour, similar to that possessed by the asari, but significantly more powerful. Morrigi males are capable of projecting a feeling of awe in those around them, as well as change their appearance to that of an attractive male (or female in the case of asari) of the onlooker's species. Many times, this adopted image is equipped with a pair of wings in addition to its normal traits. The glamour is most powerful when used against targets that are genetically female.

Morrigi females also possess a psychic glamour, but it has the opposite effect of the male glamour. While males create a feeling of awe and fascination, the female glamour creates a feeling of threat and terror. The female appears to grow in size and ferocity, creating a overpower desire to flee. Morrigi females are also well known for their ability to resist psychic tampering, and males find those females who can see through their glamour to be extremely attractive. Research efforts to understand the source of this effect have been stymied by lack of participation from Morrigi females.

Politically, Morrigi have a reputation for being fence-sitters, a reputation they have done little to dissuade. The Morrigi Confederation remains the largest stellar nation to ever refuse associate status in the Council when offered. This refusal has caused tensions between the Confederation and the Turian Hierarchy. Many turians are extremely suspicious of the Morrigi's motivations for refusing associate status, and worry that the Morrigi are plotting against the Council. They also are distrustful of the Morrigi for their use of glamour, and most turians consider Morrigi to be the worst sort of blank face. Morrigi generally take this hostility in stride.

The Asari Republics has a mixed relationship with the Confederation. Both nations began exploring the galaxy at the same time, but the Morrigi Confederation expanded faster, reaching their peak considerably sooner than the Republics. However, the Suuligi War brought the Morrigi to a fraction of their former strength, and the Confederation is still recovering. Many asari pity the Morrigi for this reason, and consider the Morrigi to be an example of what the asari could be, should they choose to move without caution and wisdom. The Morrigi in their turn pity the asari for what they consider to be technological and imperial stagnation, and consider the asari an example of what the Morrigi could be, should they grow too complacent. A verbal spar between an asari and a Morrigi is always a lively spectacle for this reason.

The Salarian Union is actually quite appreciative of the Morrigi's subtle nature, which is a major reason the two factions distrust one another. It takes a thief to know a thief, and the STG discovered that Morrigi stealth technology was at least equal to their own in many respects, and superior in some others. Though the two nations regard one another with suspicion on the military front, the Union maintains several extremely lucrative trade contracts with the Confederation.

The Morrigi's primary ally in Citadel Space is the Quarian Migrant Fleet, oddly enough. As fellow interstellar nomads, both races have quite a bit in common. Quarian ships and labor are often welcomed to Morrigi planets as though they were Morrigi themselves. Most quarians often think the Morrigi are just little bit mad, but find the Morrigi's insanity to be harmless and slightly charming. The Fleet doesn't have so many friends that it can afford to be picky. Tali'Zorah nar Rayya, daughter of one of the Admiralty Board, was quoted as saying,

_"The Morrigi are so beautiful, but you can never tell if it's real or just part of that glamour they use. Almost like us with our suits. They even go on Pilgrimages like we do. The only difference is they do it on purpose. We don't have a choice. What kind of people would willingly choose exile?"_

The volus have a difficult time with the Morrigi. As fellow traders, they largely view Morrigi as skilled rivals, but often with an undercurrent of jealousy. Volus have something of a humorous appearance by the standards of other races, while Morrigi glamour allows them to appear draped in majesty. The krogan consider Morrigi to be spineless and cowardly, flying away and letting their drones to all the real work. To which the Morrigi usually just roll their eyes. What else would drones be for?


	22. Benezia

_Liara._

It was that thought that kept her going. Even in her worst days, when she couldn't remember if she was an asari or a Hiver or something even stranger, she remembered Liara. It kept her sane. Or something close to it, anyway.

She had to find Liara. To get it, or talk to it, or kill it, or save it, or… It changed by the hour. She couldn't tell time anymore. Sometimes she would slump into a corner and cry for what felt like days, but when she rose her cheeks would barely be wet. Sometimes she would scream, and when she stopped the ship would be in entirely different system.

The ship never stayed the same. Most of the time she was on the bridge, or at least she thought it was the bridge. But some days she wasn't. It definitely moved, probably. What she saw through the bridge display kept changing, but that didn't mean much. What she saw and what was actually there weren't always the same. Sometimes she couldn't even see colors. Sometimes she saw too many.

Some back corner of her mind knew she was insane. But the screaming drowned that out for the most part. Sometimes it was her voice, or what she thought was her voice. Sometimes it was someone else's. Sometimes it was a chorus, screaming in unison. Rage, fear, sorrow, joy, sometimes all of them together. There was always screaming, even if it was only in her head.

But Liara was always there, like pin digging into the side of her brain. That word, that idea. Just when she thought she could surrender to the darkness inside her mind and become lost in the world of madness, Liara dragged her back. No matter how many times she longed for the numbness of utter insanity, Liara wouldn't let her. She had to find Liara. Destroy it or hide it or save it or hold it or run from it or-

Now she was at a navigation terminal. She didn't know how she got here, but she rarely knew how she got anywhere these days. It was a human design, probably. She used to know how to work these machines, she thought. Her memories were as unreliable as everything else. She entered the word Liara as a destination, but the computer rejected it. Above her query, she saw the past navigation searches. Liara had been entered, hundreds of times. Was someone else looking for Liara? Were they all looking for Liara? How long had she been trying to find her? Was Liara a her? Was she Liara?

She viciously grabbed her thoughts and forced them back to the navigation computer. She was on the floor somehow, and it felt like she had been there for a while. The planet on the screen had changed again. She tried to force herself back to the terminal, but her muscles didn't want to work. Suddenly, her eyes focus on another nearby terminal, and she saw a single word among the gibberish on the screen.

Thessia.

A memory rose, a sensation of blue wings on a green planet. Was Thessia the planet? Liara the bird? Or was it the reverse? But Thessia meant something, she knew it. Summoning all her strength, she forced herself back to the navigation computer. It took her swimming vision and shaking fingers (human this time, she noted with passing interest) several tries to enter the word correctly, but when she did, she saw it chime happily.

Destination accepted.

In relief, she slumped back into the chair, and let her eyes glaze over. Time passed, minutes or hours or weeks. Noises in the background drew her attention again, new noises contrasting against the endless screams. The planet had changed, a green world with white clouds. That was Thessia, she knew. She didn't know how she knew.

There were voices. She didn't understand the words, but she knew what they were saying. They wanted her to stop. They weren't going to let her find Liara.

She almost wept with frustration. She wished they would just go away. All she wanted was Liara. She suffered so much, wandered for in the throes of madness for what felt like decades, and now when she was so close, they wouldn't let her have Liara.

The volume of the screaming doubled, tripled, quadrupled, until it sounded like the whole world was just one long scream. She heard different voices, human, Hiver, turian, Tarka, all blended together into that unified cry, and she heard her own voice, just as loud as the rest.

Suddenly, she knew. She understood. They were her and she was them. She wasn't a human, or an asari, or a Tarka. She was the Leviathan, all of them together. The ship was her body, its shattered crew her blood. She had found the sanity inside the madness, the eye of the storm. It was all so clear. And those pathetic hunks of metal and light would not keep her from Liara.

The ship surged forward, responding to a command she had not yet given. Light stabbed and flashed around her as she crystalized her hatred and flung it at the strange metallic creatures that dared stand between her and her Liara.

They responded, striking her with metal darts and shining spears of light. She gritted her teeth, embracing the pain and letting it focus her thoughts. It helped her cut through the insanity, bringing up memories and clarity she didn't know she had. Three asari cruisers. Mass drivers, UV beamers, barriers. She smirked viciously and fired her neutron beams and fusion cannons at the nearest cruiser.

It crumbled and burned, stabbed dozens of times through with glowing beams. She turned her focus to the next cruiser as her energy weapons recharged, hammering its barriers with her heavy drivers. Its beamers were working overtime trying to stop her missiles, and it seemed to be trying to move into a blind spot to avoid the worst of her firepower. She fired her inertial cannons, slowing the cruiser to a crawl just as her neutron beams recharged. The second cruiser fared no better under the barrage than the first had.

There were more ships now, she realized. Frigates that weaved and darted around her armored body, stinging like wasps. She lashed at them with the phasers, a whispering impulse in her mind advising her to target their engines first. She agreed, making the necessary adjustments, and took aim at the last cruiser with her drivers. It seemed to be trying to keep its distance, hammering her with its spinal guns.

Her neutron beams came online again, and she promptly began firing in all directions, slicing the annoying frigates into pieces. Several of the cleverer frigates were still darting around, moving too quickly for the turrets to track them for more than a second, but it hardly mattered. She fired an alpha strike with her energy weapons, filling the space around her with fusion projectiles and stabbing beams.

The three remaining frigates were unprepared for such a daring tactic. One unlucky ship caught a neutron beam along the port side, its armor peeling away instantly as the particle beam tore it in half. The other two were more fortunate, taking only glancing hits from the fusion cannons. But it was enough for the phasers to successfully stab through the weakened armor around its engines. It tumbled helplessly, and one of the heavy drivers quickly finished it.

The last frigate gamely weaved its way through the lethal storm of phaser beams to continue stinging her with its weapons. With a disconcerting note, she realized that one of her neutron beams was no longer responded to her commands. Just then, a lucky shot from an inertial cannon caught the frigate, slowing it enough for another inertial cannon to lock on and fire. Three neutron beams opened fire on the mired frigate, instantly tearing it to pieces.

Ahead, she had the third cruiser pinned against the planet. It couldn't retreat further or risk letting her have her goal, her Liara. Its barriers fell as she hammered it with another volley from her drivers, its shining, pristine appearance shattering like glass as the HEAP rounds punched into it, sending debris and bodies billowing out from several gaping holes. The cruiser still fought on, firing again and again. Her armor deflected most of it, and those rounds that struck home did little damage.

Before she could finish the annoying vessel, a stabbing pain blossomed in her side. She turned her attention to the source of this pain, and realized that a motely fleet of new ships had appeared, closing on her from the sides.

A pair of sleek Liir patrol vessels, a turian Q-ship, a titanic Hiver super-freighter, a SolForce trade ship and its destroyer escorts, and a swarm of Morrigi attack drones were approaching from all directions, their weapons charged and shields raised. For a moment, her resolve faltered. There were so many of them. She had already taken some damage. Perhaps she should withdraw. She had no escorts, no support. Tactically, this was-

_Liara._

The word cut short all her doubts. The new ships were of no consequence compared to her goal. Nothing would keep her from Liara. Nothing.

Ignoring the new ships, she returned her attention to the last asari cruiser keeping her from Thessia, even as her phasers shifted into pulse mode to engage the darting Morrigi drones. Their X-Ray lasers slashed at her hull, but the reflective coating protected her from the worst of the damage. With a smile, she watched as the cruiser before her took another volley of heavy driver rounds and began to break up in the planet's atmosphere, removing her last obstacle.

Even as the other ships began entering combat range, opening fire with everything from missiles and stormers to beams and energy torpedoes, she urged the Leviathan forward, bringing it into a high orbit over the planet. But as she approached, her fusion cannons tracking and easily pulverizing a SolForce destroyer that had been mired by an inertial cannon, she was almost instantly overwhelmed. There were so many things on this planet! The noise was almost deafening, and it was only the constant screams of her crew that kept her from going even more mad in the overwhelming chaos.

There was no way she could ever find Liara in that cacophony. She almost despaired, tears filling her eyes at the hopelessness of it all, when a lancer beam scraped across the side of her hull. The intense pain brought her focus back, and she snarled in defiance. If the things on that planet were too noisy for her to find Liara, she would just have to silence them.

Her missile tubes opened and ten antimatter missiles shot toward the planet below, aimed expertly for areas where the noise was greatest. She then turned her bow to face the oncoming ships, shredding a Liir patrol ship with a neutron beam as she did. A drone spun burning into the atmosphere as her phasers clipped it, and the turian ship began slowly falling back, trying to get some distance to use its main gun effectively. A series of heavy driver rounds shattered its barriers and crippled it beyond repair, drifting helplessly in space without weapons or power.

The Hiver freighter adjusted its course and increased speed, intending to ram her. She fired all six of her inertial cannons into it, slowing its pace considerably even as she hammered it constantly with antimatter MIRVs. With a silent groan, the ship's bulkhead collapsed, its massive frame collapsing and crumpling inward.

Her sensors began picking up even more ships moving into attack position, but she didn't care. Below, she could see the glowing bursts from her missiles and heard the noise from the planet lessen. These other ships were nothing. Soon the noise would be gone, and she could find her Liara. She smiled to herself, even as she launched another volley of missiles at the helpless planet below.

_Liara._


	23. The Battle of Thessia (Codex)

_So how did you all like my Wham Episode? Those of you playing at home may take a drink for another TV Tropes reference. The asari didn't get hit nearly as hard as humanity or the Tarka did when they got their homeworlds nailed (at least in terms of sheer number of casualties), but try not to tell them that. They aren't really in the listening mood right now. A quick codex entry to fill everyone in on the fallout of Nezzie's little attempt at mass murder (since she's not exactly what you could call a reliable witness to events), and then we'll return to our beleaguered protagonists. Poor Stone Mind is going to get an ache in his crystals trying to deal with this fecal hurricane. _

_As usual, reviews are appreciated. If you have any comments or questions, please let me know either by PM or review, and I will try and address them. Until then, enjoy!_

* * *

**Battle of Thessia**

The Battle of Thessia (alternately known as the Bombardment of Thessia, the Thessia Incursion, and the Thessia Massacre) was the largest military action directly involving the Asari Republics since the Krogan Rebellions. It also marked the first time in recorded history that a Council homeworld suffered orbital bombardment.

It began when the _SFS Leviathan_, which at that time had been missing for almost six months, emerged from Node Space some distance from the planet. Long range scans indicated that all most all major systems save the Node Drive and life support were offline, despite the lack of any apparent damage to the ship.

After several hails went unanswered, Thessia's orbital defenses were mobilized. The Second Defense Squadron (consisting of three cruisers as well as their frigate escorts and commanded by Commodore Keisna T'raous) was the only Asari military presence in the system at that time, and as such was deployed to investigate. When the squadron approached the _Leviathan_ many of its systems suddenly reactivated, and it began moving swiftly toward Thessia. Requests for the ship to stand down were met only with endless transmissions of screams. Consequently, Commodore T'raous concluded hostile intent and moved to intercept the _Leviathan_.

It immediately opened fire on the squadron's cruiser compliment, prompting the ships to return fire. However, the _Leviathan's _advanced armor and barriers negated much of the damage from these shots. Laser fire was similarly deflected. The _Leviathan _successfully disabled the _Splendid Dawn_ within the first two minutes of the battle, and the _Eternal Guardian_ was completely destroyed by a core explosion shortly afterward. Commodore T'raous was killed in the _Leviathan_'s initial strikes against the _Eternal Guardian_, relegating command to Captain Shiora Avea of the _Sedana_.

Realizing that direct confrontation with the _Leviathan_ would be suicide, Captain Avea pulled the _Sedana_ back toward Thessia, utilizing the squadron's frigates as a screen. The _Leviathan's _beam weaponry swiftly proved too much for the frigates, and the entire compliment was reported as destroyed or disabled within minutes of entering close engagement range. However, Captain Avea's gambit was successful in allowing the _Sedana_ to open the range, shielding it from the _Leviathan's_ shorter range energy weapons.

The _Sedana_ had sustained heavy damage from the _Leviathan's _drivers when it received support from an unlikely quarter. Several ships disengaged from Thessia's trade lanes to engage the _Leviathan_. Two Liir patrol ships, the _Perspective_ and the _Teacher_, abandoned the freighters they had been escorting to intercept the _Leviathan_. As the same time, the _SFS Marco Polo_, a cruiser-class freighter, also moved to intercept, bringing its battlerider escorts with it. A Hiver super-freighter, the _Queen's Blessing_, joined the others shortly afterward, along with the Turian Q-ship _Steel Wings_. Several Morrigi escort vessels also launched attack drones against the _Leviathan _throughout the course of the battle, but no Morrigi ships directly engaged it.

Unfortunately, the intervention of these ships was insufficient to save the _Sedana, _which was destroyed by a heavy driver volley shortly before the others could reach optimum combat range. The _Leviathan_ then continued on its course toward Thessia, engaging the other ships only peripherally until it reached low orbit over the planet. It then began to fire antimatter missiles at major population centers, redeploying to engage the other ships as it did so.

The exact purpose of the _Leviathan's_ bombardment remains a mystery. The ship possessed enough firepower that a focused strike with all of its weapons against either the planet's oceans or crust would have resulted in an extinction level event within several volleys. None of the remaining defenders possessed enough firepower to present any kind of serious threat to it, but it still diverted the majority of its weaponry into engaging them, restricting its attacks on the planet to missile strikes against cities or other densely populated areas.

At this stage in the battle, many other independent ships had either left Thessia's trade lanes or launched from nearby stations to engage the _Leviathan_, with limited success. In the twenty minutes that it remained in stationary orbit over the planet, it crippled or destroyed over twenty vessels and significantly damaged twice that number. However, due to this distraction, the _Leviathan _was unable to attack Thessia with anything more than its antimatter missiles.

The _Leviathan_'s rampage was eventually brought to an end by the appearance of the super-dreadnought _Athame's Wrath_. The _Wrath_ super-dreadnought class was created as an update for the aging _Destiny_-class super-dreadnought design, and the first of these ships was undergoing its final construction at the Piares shipyards. When it became obvious that the Second Defense Squadron would be unable to contain the _Leviathan_, Yard Mistress Raana V'lavius took command of the unfinished ship herself and ordered an emergency launch with a skeleton crew of engineers and commandeered crew from other ships.

Though much of _Athame's Wrath's _systems were still offline, including its point defense grid and life support, her barriers and main guns were already operational. After an FTL micro-jump across the system, _Athame's Wrath _directly engaged the _Leviathan_ at nearly point blank range. Though the _Leviathan's _weapons inflicted serious damage to _Athame's Wrath_, the asari super-dreadnough was successful in driving it away from the planet and back into Node Space. Due to the damage inflicted by the _Leviathan_ and by its own FTL jump, _Athame's Wrath_ was unable to pursue it to the other end of the Node Line. Further investigation has been unable to locate any trace of the _Leviathan_.

The consequences of the Battle of Thessia are still being felt today. Approximately 1.6 billion people died as a result of the bombardment, over a quarter of the planet's total population. Even with the limited attacks Thessia's biosphere was badly damaged, and several thousand unique species of flora and fauna are expected to become extinct or endangered by the end of the year. The massive relief effort provided by the Council has prevented most food and medical shortages, but the Asari Republics have been forced to hire Eclipse mercenaries to help maintain order.

Much of Thessia's terrestrial industry was destroyed, though the _Leviathan's _path fortunately avoided any orbital foundries or settlements. Preliminary damage estimates place the total value of buildings and infrastructure destroyed at about 320 trillion credits, and the EMP caused by the detonations has left much of the planet without power. Construction of a Shroud facility on the planet to help stabilize the atmosphere and prevent large scale climate damage is currently in the planning stages. The exact effects of the bombardment on the Asari Republics' greater economy cannot be estimated, though a minor to moderate recession is expected in the short term. Similarly, the incursion's influence on foreign policy cannot be guessed, though popular opinion is currently extremely frigid toward the Orion Arm, especially SolForce.

The Republics' military stance came under fire following the battle, with many citizens noting that the extensive defenses of the Turian, Tarkasian, and Human homeworlds would likely have been able to repel such an attack. Extranet conspiracy sites have latched onto the coincidental absence of the Sixth Fleet, deployed on maneuvers, as evidence of a conspiracy to bring the Republics into conflict with SolForce, though no solid evidence has surfaced to support these conclusions.

After the battle, the _Destiny Ascension_ was recalled from the Citadel for an emergency refit that would add several recent technological breakthroughs to the ship's arsenal, including meson beam weapons and an x-ray laser point defense grid. During these refits, the Citadel will be protected by the Turian Seventh Fleet. Following the design's success in battle, two new _Wrath_-class super-dreadnoughts were commissioned and are scheduled for completion within the next three years. _Athame's Wrath _is expected to enter full service before the end of the year, following the final steps of its construction and the extensive repairs required for its battle damage.

Following the attack the number of volunteers for the Republic's Huntress Program quadrupled almost overnight. The number of recruits was such that even after weeding out those volunteers that did not meet the huntresses' rigorous physical and biotic requirements, hundreds were turned away simply because the program lacked the resources and facilities to train so many. This influx of volunteers, combined with the dynamic increase in fleet production, is projected to bring the Asari Republics' military strength to a level not seen since the Rachni Wars inside of three decades.


	24. Wing (Story)

_We now return you to our regularly scheduled protagonists. I threw this one together in about a day and a half, so I'm hoping it holds up. The ending kind of gave me trouble, but hopefully it doesn't totally suck. Next up is another guest Codex, so it should be along a little quicker than usual as well. Reviews are appreciated, and I will do my best to answer any questions you may have, as always. _

* * *

"This is an outrage!"

"The only outrage, Ambassador, is that we have allowed this farce to continue for so long."

Sara Thok'dur reclined in a dark corner of the hall, smiling to herself as a minor program one of her old handlers had designed fed her the audio through the wall she was leaning against. She was just outside Councilor Tevos' office, where the Councilor was meeting with Ambassador Udina. She always found listening to the two politicians fight amusing, and today was no exception.

"That data is classified! You cannot expect-"

"We expect you to be able to take care of your own affairs, Ambassador. Since you and rest of SolForce have proven that they are incapable of doing so, we will do it for you. You have had six months to find the _Leviathan_. Six months to find a single ship. You insisted it was an internal matter, and refused Council assistance. We allowed this. But when your lost ship begins attacking our worlds, Ambassador, it stops being an 'internal matter'."

The Tarkasian Spectre sniggered as she heard Udina sputter. She could practically hear the pompous human turning red with shock and rage.

"Let me be clear. You have no idea how many strings I have had to pull over the past week to keep my people from voting on a declaration of war, Ambassador. One and a half billion people are dead and my homeworld is in flames because of your people's paranoid warmongering. So I will be clear: the Council's decision on this is final. Please turn over all data on the _Leviathan_, as well as a list of the assets SolForce currently has deployed to locate it, to the Spectre office by this time tomorrow. Humanity's role in this investigation is over."

"I refuse! The information you are asking for is a military secret. Our rights as a sovereign nation-"

"I was not asking. You will give us the data, or we will take it."

"I would like to see you try."

"No, Ambassador. You would not. Now, if you will excuse me, I have another appointment."

Udina stormed out, muttering darkly under his breath. Sara waved her tail cheerfully to him, causing him to shoot her a glare that would have melted the hull plate on a Hiver warship. He stomped off, his dark muttering increasing in volume and violence as he went.

She just laughed and stayed where she was. Best to give the Councilor a few minutes to cool off before their meeting. Though Spectres were technically unbound by rank and could speak freely, Sara found that they were more inclined to listen to her reports and take her suggestions when they were in a good mood.

As she slowly counted backward from three hundred in her head, she heard the soft chime of an incoming call from Councilor Tevos' terminal. Suppressing another smirk, Sara relaxed further against the wall and listened in. What was the point of having the highest security clearance in the galaxy if you couldn't use it to eavesdrop? The voice on the other end of the line was merely an electronic murmur through her listening program (a flaw that had always bugged her handler), but she could hear Tevos clearly.

"Yes… So there's still no sign? …I understand. Thank you for your efforts. If you uncover any new information, please let me know."

The computer chimed again, and Sara heard the Councilor slump down into her chair. There was silence from the office, and the Spectre pushed off the wall, deactivating her listening program as she did. The Councilor's mood was definitely not going to improve after a call like that. Setting her face into a mask of professionalism, she pressed a hand against the icon on the door, letting Tevos know she was there.

"Come in," she called heavily, and Sara walked in to find the Councilor still at her desk, a weary expression on her face. She looked more exhausted than Sara had ever seen her, like a massive invisible weight was holding her down.

"My daughter," she explained, though Sara's face remained completely passive. "She was on Thessia during the attacks. I had hoped she found shelter at the Temple of Athame before the missiles hit. It was one of the few structures that survived the bombardment. But it appears that was not the case. She's still missing."

"Ma'am?"

"My office's security protocols are good enough to pick up listening programs, Thok'dur," Tevos stated, a expression of very slight disapproval hovering around her lips. "It's alright. It's all a matter of public record anyway."

"I'm sorry to hear about your daughter," the Tarka said, letting her face shift into an expression of sympathy. "Kao'Kuuma was once the victim of orbital bombardment as well. Your people will recover from this, and be stronger for it."

"Perhaps," Tevos said, with a smile that did not reach her eyes.

"You were fortunate that antimatter weapons have comparatively little fallout when compared to fusion or fission devices. Much of Thessia should be resettable once the atmosphere has been cleaned. I understand the Hiver Imperium and Salarian Union have offered to assist with the atmosphere purification."

"A few decades ago, the idea of antimatter bombardment wasn't a situation I even considered possible," she remarked, resting her head on one of her hands, bitterness in her tone. "Now I'm supposed to feel fortunate my homeworld wasn't hit by anything worse. You know, the analysts tell me it may be years before we ever get an accurate death count? Apparently the weapons used were powerful enough that most victims were completely vaporized. Even the most accurate forensic analysis can't determine their identities."

The Councilor's voice cracked, and Sara carefully pretended not to notice. With a deep breath, Tevos stood up and walked around her desk, her face once more calm and professional.

"I apologize for that, Spectre. Let us return to the reason I summoned you," she said, tone even and business-like. "How much do you know about the Battle of Thessia?"

"Little beyond what was reported by the news," Sara replied instantly. "Why? Was there something left out?"

"Yes. The official reports state that all transmissions to the _Leviathan_ were met with nothing but incoherent screaming. This is true. However, we were able to isolate some of the screams."

The Councilor activated her omnitool and pressed several glowing tiles. In response, a static-filled rasp of clicks and buzzes filled the room, before dying away in a harsh gurgling wheeze.

"Was that…a Hiver?" Sara asked, head tilting.

"Correct. The majority of voices we were able to detect were either human or asari, whose vocal patterns are too similar to pick out. They blend together too much. But Hiver speech patterns are very unique, enabling us to separate them."

"But what language was he speaking? My translator is programmed for both K'en-Ken and Ri'kap-ken. I can even speak a bit of either dialect without it, and I didn't recognize any of that."

"That's because he's speaking Tcho'to-Ken, the language of Hiver nobility," Tevos explained. "It is very uncommon for Hivers to teach it to outsiders, and our scientists are still working on a complete translation of the language. Fortunately, Prince Stone Mind was willing to interpret for us."

"Kind of him," Sara remarked quietly, managing to keep sarcasm from her tone. Stone Mind had his chitinous fingers in far too many things for her taste, and the Rangers apparently agreed, judging by the number of operatives assigned to shadow him and his new quarian 'assistant'.

"The phrase is a very simple one when translated, and is actually a grammatically incorrect variation on a minor insult among nobility," Tevos continued, ignoring her comment. "Word for word, it translates to 'Princess of the Small Wing'. The Prince was rather puzzled by this."

"Can't say I'm any less confused. What's next, a Tarkasian using Kona Kai to tell us we have tiny tails?"

"Unlikely. The missing piece of this puzzle is context. Tell me, Thok'dur, what do you know about Matriarch Benezia?"

"Only that she was on the _Leviathan_ for its christening ceremony, and went missing when it did. I assume, however, that the Council knows a bit more?"

"Benezia was something of a mentor to me in my earlier political career," the Councilor explained. "I had the good fortune to meet her daughter several years before we made contact with the Orion Arm. Her name is Liara T'Soni, but her mother had a different name for her back then: Little Wing."

"The Princess of the Small Wing," Sara said, realization dawning. "You think the _Leviathan_ being at Thessia has something to do with Liara?"

"It is a definite possibility."

"With all due respect, Councilor, this is a bit of a stretch. The Hiver voice could have been referring to something complete different. He didn't exactly sound sane."

"This fact has also occurred to the us," Tevos agreed. "But the fact remains that until we have time to go over SolForce's data, this is our only led. We can't afford to not follow it up."

"Fair enough. Please tell me that Liara wasn't actually on Thessia when it was hit?"

"Fortunately, no. Liara is a doctor of archeology. She is currently working on a research project in the Orion Arm, helping the Morrigi analyze some of their ancient ruins. We would like you to travel to Morrigi space and extract Liara, for her own safety."

"And if she declines 'extraction'?"

"Convince her. Liara is our best chance of finding and stopping the _Leviathan_, before it has a chance to strike anywhere else."

"Fair enough," Sara said, straightening professionally. "When do I leave?"

"Immediately. There's a transport waiting for you that will take you where you need to go. I cannot stress how important haste is to your mission, Thok'dur. We don't have enough fleets to adequately guard all of Council space against a power as formidable as the _Leviathan_. The Council has shored up our defenses on all major colonies, but there are dozens of smaller ones we just don't have the ships to protect."

"I won't let you down, Councilor," Sara said crisply, nodding. "I'll call the ship and visit Requisitions for what I'll need. We should be underway within the hour."

"Thank you, Thok'dur. Dismissed."


	25. Element Zero, Mass Relays and (Codex)

_And now, another guest chapter from _The Poarter. _Originally this was going to be on a different topic, but he decided to take on a bigger issue with his article, and I thought it was pretty cool. Please keep in mind that this is an in-universe entry with two different flavors of bias on it, so facts presented are not necessarily accurate or true. Sifting through the propaganda and lies is, again, your job._

_ Also, since there where several people who wrote in with the same general concerns about the last chapter, I am writing a special story chapter that will explain the whole Leviathan situation more in-depth, and go into why the Council and SolForce are acting the way they are. It will probably be up some time next week._

_Special shout out to EffervescentNova, who managed to write 7 reviews for different chapters in about two days. Check your messages, dude, I've got answers for most of the concerns you had. Those of you whose reviews have still gone unanswered, please be patient. I'm still catching up. Want to write a guest chapter? Just let me know the topic and send me a draft._

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**Element Zero, Mass Relays and the Asari Influence**

"Why did the Orion races develop such a different path of technology? Why is our technology so heterogeneous instead of as homogeneous as the rest of the Citadel races? Yet paradoxically, why do the races in the Orion Arm have such similar ideas regarding warfare, when Citadel Races as a whole are a very diverse lot? I talked to the human author, Matthew Tang, and found his ideas, though somewhat radical, to be rather interesting and well thought out."

**-Tarka Ambassador Vas'Avan**

"Solforce is not a xenophobic organization. We accept, tolerate and support multiculturalism and all forms of alien in our society. We cannot be held responsible for the actions of a few extremists."

**-Attributed to the Governor of New Shuzin**

Generically speaking some degree of xenophobia will always be prevalent in some form in any society. It is a fool's dream to believe otherwise. However the degree, prevalence and sheer openness of speciesism varies among different alien races.

The Citadel races are, generally speaking, more tolerant of other species living among them. This is often attributed to three factors. The first is the long-standing peaceful relations the Citadel races have with one another, with certain notable exceptions. The second can be attributed to Asari influence in Citadel culture. Being a mono-gendered race that can reproduce with any species with a central electric nervous system, they have been very open and supporting of most Asari-alien pairings, with a few exceptions.

The third and final factor is the willingness to absolve and attempt to mitigate existing differences. Many of these factors are explored in the e-book "Element Zero, Mass Relays and the Asari Influence" written by Matthew Tang. This controversial book was both critically acclaimed and despised throughout Council space, and goes into great detail about how the Mass Relays have caused a truly lopsided situation for the various Citadel Races.

The book was considered to be controversial by critics, especially among the asari, and made several poorly supported conclusions about the Protheans, such as theorizing they ruled a galactic spanning empire that enslaved other races. Despite these problems, the book raised many interesting points and is considered to be an excellent summary of many more complex points of galactic history and anthropology. It is currently considered one of the more popular pieces of scientific literature, seeing widespread publication in Orion, Citadel and Terminus space, despite panning by more serious historians and scientists for its many wild assumptions.

The major points of the book can be easily summarized. His first point was the mass relays themselves. Comparing the situation between that of the mass relay extensive galaxy and the large dead zone in the Orion Arm, Matthew Tang went into great detail into how it affected the societies of various races throughout the galaxy.

Mass relays are considered to be an extremely restrictive form of faster than light travel, in comparison to technology such as hyper-drives or stutter-warp. Travel is only possible from one relay to another, narrowing travel routes to very specific lanes. This brings the races utilizing this technology into direct conflict with one another, forcing them into one of two opposing stances. Either cooperates with other races to share the relays, or subjugate and obliterate all other users, securing a monopoly. Controlled wars for territory are not viable in the long term. This conflict is escalated by the fact that mass effect drives, themselves a derivative of relay technology, allow for only a limited window of travel before they must be discharged. This severely limits the number of habitable worlds available. For most advanced species, especially fast breeding species such as the Krogan or Rachni, total wars are the only option to prevent overcrowding.

Thus, unlike other FTL drives, using the mass relays forces various races to inhabit only a small portion of the galaxy compared to the possible infinite, unmapped mass relay dead zones. This is reflected in the two galactic groups. The Citadel races have a history of long periods of peace punctuated by short wars of extermination for limited resources, such as the Krogan Rebellions. Total cooperation or total subjugation is key for relay dependent civilizations, as it generally allows the maximum yield and efficiency in order to maintain substantial populations. Other methods of coexistence would inevitably lead to failure as different races began to expand.

In turn, this means that periods of peace are long and very solid. In fact there have been very few instances of anything more than brush fire wars between minor warlords or mercenary groups in Citadel space. In these long periods, treaties are signed and held together by tradition and mutual benefit. In turn this means that the xenophobia that would normally be prevalent between two groups of aliens is considerably lessened.

In contrast, the Orion races experience frequent wars, but at a generally smaller scale. Most conflicts remain quarantined to small geographic region of space, and are often called off when they are no longer profitable. Each of the six major race in the Orion Arm, with the exception of the Morrigi and Liir, have gone to war with each other at least once for various reasons. Internal struggle is common, with the Tarkasian Empire and Hiver Imperium having both experienced centuries long periods of civil strife. Wars on several fronts against multiple enemies are also common, as evidenced by the Hiver-Tarka Wars. Altogether, the Orion Arm is a violent place with dynamically changing diplomatic situations. Races can be at peace for years, trying to annihilate each other a decade after, and then united in alliance several years immediately afterward.

This level of conflict and political chaos can be attributed the plentiful supply of colonized planets, instead of the lack of it. The prevalence of unrestricted FTL allows races to expand around each other, rather than through, giving them much more space to expand. Wars of extermination are unnecessary, instead being replaced by opportunistic wars of greed. However, this casual approach to violence makes more Orion races easily provoked in comparison to their Citadel counterparts, with violence often sparking over comparatively minor incidents.

Each Orion Race has been subjugated or attacked by another alien species with expansionist tendencies. The best examples are the Liir and humanity. The Liir were enslaved by another alien race with expansionist tendencies while humanity rose out of the ashes of an attack by a rogue Hiver nesting fleet.

Once again this can be attributed to the idea that there is a plentiful supply of planets. Different species race to claim the abundant resources, but there are enough that total cooperation or extermination is not required. While many scholars disagree, the fact that very few of the major powers in the Orion Arm have been eliminated despite almost a century of wars and hostile interactions, credits Tang's theory. In the Orion Arm, unified alliances are temporary and rare, and total wars are the exception, not the rule.

Tang cynically believes that the Protheans created Mass Relays around habitable worlds that could produce intelligent life, thus producing future slaves. As a result most Mass Relays usually lead to habitable worlds. As stated before, this causes an extreme version of Subjugation or Cooperation scenario.

However, without this scenario, new races are often swept into conflicts far before they are ready. Expansionist predecessors force any race originating in areas without mass relays to adapt, expand and outperform their competition in a form of galactic natural selection. It also leads to a very paranoid and trigger-happy approach to first contact situations. Anything that can give them an edge over their rivals is taken with haste, under the auspices of self-defense. Each race seeks easy prey to exploit, while they fear encountering a race more powerful that would subjugate them in turn. This paranoia is often justified in their own minds as races who survive violent first contact with extra-terrestrial empires gain a group solid group mentality of "us vs. them". In turn this fuels exceptional technological growth, expansion in an attempt to combat this new threat. In the process, they create new enemies who rise to prominence, repeating the cycle.

However, Tang maintains that large empires are rare in the Orion Arm because such an empire generally splinters, regressing after reaching their apex. Then they are challenged by a new, more motivated power, sparking new conflict. While the latter part of Tan's theory is credible, with humanity serving as a prime example, the first part is controversial to say the least. Tan lists the Morrigi as the primary support for this theory, but Morrigi experts have been quick to challenge these claims. Nevertheless the commonality of aggressive expansions means that many technologically inept races suffer the predations of those more advanced, and many minor races in the Orion Arm have been subject to assimilation or displacement before they could develop enough to defend themselves.

Without the Mass Relays to act as a bottleneck, the cycle of violence and expansion continues and chaos reigns. Thousands of underdeveloped and less technologically adapted species are easily trampled into the void under the logic of "us versus them" combined with "self-defense". The Uttuku and the Kaeru are both examples of victims to this aggressive expansion. Both races were only beginning their development when their planets were annexed by other powers. Though the Kaeru have integrated fully with the Tarkasian Empire, the Uttuku were known to violently fight human colonization efforts to the bitter end. Thus they earned the nickname Stranglers for their preferred method of attack.

The second reason why Citadel Races are far more peaceful and their societies are less xenophobic and violent to other species as a whole is Element Zero. Element Zero is considered the founding block of Citadel civilization. It was once believed, before contact with the Orion Arm, that FTL and galactic civilization was impossible without it. However Element Zero acts as another bottleneck which forces various races to either choose Cooperation and Trade or Subjugation and Extinction.

The simplicity of refining and applying Element Zero makes interstellar travel remarkable easily. The ability of Element Zero to cause changes in mass makes it a remarkable and universally applicable resource. However other elements and technologies, such as Element X, the element responsible for anti-gravity technology, can be used to duplicate its effects. The difference is the difficulty.

Practically, usage and creation of Element Zero based FTL is much easier and takes a much shorter time to develop than any other form. In fact most races find mass effect drives very easy to create, requiring less than a hundred years to develop in most cases. Experimentation with this amazing resource can create very beneficial results with very few tests. For other forms of FTL require enormous amounts of research and millions of stimulations, often involving much personal risk. A notable example of this is Blasky Yao-Hsiang, the creator of the Node Drive, who was killed during the first successful test of his new drive system.

Although research into alternate means of FTL is more frustrating and time consuming, it also means that the mindset of the Orion races is more dynamic. Frustration and personal adversary are key to the culture of each Orion race. While it would take exceedingly high amounts of trials to produce viable FTL results, it does allow newer properties to be discovered and new theories to be formed from tampering with other technology. This in turn encourages growth, exploration and expansion while discouraging stagnation. As a result the Orion Races are phenomenally more advanced than their Citadel counterparts in many fields.

To construct a functioning mass effect drive, very little is required beyond a small amount of Element Zero. An FTL generator used by any Orion Arm race is dozens of times more complex, made up of various parts and requires a full knowledge of at least half a dozen fields in science to fully grasp and understand.

The third and final point put forward by Matthew Tang is Asari Influence. Due to the freedom allowed by their FTL, most Orion governments have been independently governing their colonies for decades or centuries prior to contact with one another. In the time that they were in contact, they have generally engaged in loose trade treaties, cold wars and active conflicts with one another for various reasons. This largely discourages serious cross-cultural interaction. Beliefs and values that blossomed on their initial planets are still traded among races, but the comparative difficulty of developing Orion FTL ships and constant political tension often prevents casual cultural exchange.

Ultimately this has forged deep cultural and racial identities that cannot be easily displaced. On the other hand, the various races of the Citadel explore a much more asari-like approach when it comes to foreign matters and beliefs. Most governments of Citadel races are militarily stagnant, pursuing civilian expenditure instead of military investment. The salarians, who with their enormous birth rates, should face a similar dilemma to the krogan, in a more diluted form, yet this is not the case, due to the large amount of time and money they were able to invest in this problem.

However there are exceptions, as demonstrated with the turians. This can be attributed to the long-standing leadership of the Turian Hierarchy which is similar to that of SolForce. The Hierarchy can easily trace its collective government as far back their Iron Age, establishing a longstanding president that is not easily changed. The turians still have a larger military budget than any known stellar nation.

Despite this, asari influence has shaped Citadel culture, encouraging a civilian focus to governmental spending to a limited extent. Tang maintains that as a long-lived species, asari take the long view to conflicts, asserting their influence subtly into arts, fashion, and other media, with the goal of creating a specific image in galactic society. In essence, nothing is truly "alien" to an asari, encouraging the Cooperation in the previous dilemma.

They want to be the Chancellor rather than the King, ruling from the shadows, consulted for their advice and respected for their wisdom. The more interbreeding that occurs, the more influence they acquire. Tang reminds that there are legions of stories in the mythology various species that tell of a leader who fell in love with an individual from a different culture, who then used his or her new power to help her people. Tang states that the asari desire to be this individual in galactic politics.

The primary source of conflict between the asari and the Orion races is that by asari standards, Orion races are hasty. Tang points out that while the turians are militaristic; they are conservative, so they aren't a threat to asari dominance. Orion races are also militaristic, but are very progressive, which once again can be attributed to the nature of their location.

The lack of Mass Relays encourages occasional competition and various frivolous wars for expansion, as most Orion Race colonies are comparatively close to one another, on a galactic scale. This in turn encourages rampant technological growth. Speed and decisive action have immediate rewards in such a setting, while Relay travel encourages conservative action, to prevent sparking another war of extermination.

This is further pointed out that the volus have not achieved a Council seat in the hundreds of years they have been associated with the Citadel, despite their massive economic power. The volus and hanar have culturally pursued a more peaceful and/or asari-like approach to situations, preferring to use diplomacy rather than force.

In contrast the Liir, who have a pacifistic society similar to that of the hanar or asari, when provoked readily wiped out the Batarians despite enormous protests from the other Citadel and Orion races. Tang indicated that this indicates that many minor races are slowly being assimilated into the asari mindset unknowingly, because the asari are the dominant power.

Moreover the asari are a peaceful superpower that has achieved astounding feats with the aid of the Salarians and other allies. Why wouldn't less successful races want to conform to their ideals in an attempt to emulate their success?

Without a historical or cultural catalyst to make cultural identity a massive part of a race, new races are generally uplifted and brought into fold quite easily. However there are exceptions.

This is especially demonstrated in two races; the turians and the batarians. Prior to contact with the asari, both governments had extensive histories in governing their own interstellar nations. Tang claims that this means that when coming into contact with the asari, the turians and the batarians did not conform as much as other species. Their success with governing their various colonies meant there was little need to assimilate to the standards of an asari galactic government.

While other races, such as the volus, maintained their own interstellar nations at the time of first contact, these were much smaller in scope than that of species like the Turians. They were also less technologically adept than the asari or salarians and much less militarily inclined, explaining their willingness to adapt to the galactic norm.

In essence this is a similar manner to when a young individual is taken "under the wing" of an older one. Without a strong pre-existing belief system, the younger individual is often easily shaped by the elder, intentionally or not.

Orion races, like the turians and batarians, maintain a strong cultural identity, though the reasons vary between different cultures. Batarians maintained their cultural identity through isolation. Humanity does the same to a lesser extent. Turians and Hivers maintain theirs through a strong tradition of service and duty. Liir culture is too alien to easily to relate to the culture of others. Interestingly, Tarka have been surprisingly accepting of other cultures, and participate heavily in many different walks of life throughout Citadel space.

Whether or not Tang's theories hold true is controversial to this day. The bias against the asari is obvious in the text, and many of the facts brought forth by Tang are unproven or heavily contested. Another controversy surrounding Tang's book is his implication that military power is more important than economic power. Collectively, the Orion Arm's estimated military power rivals that of the Council. Meanwhile, the Citadel's economic strength easily eclipses that of the Orion Races.

In worst case simulations, a war between a united Orion Arm and the Council would drag on for decades, costing billions of lives with no clear winner. However many racial divisions, xenophobia and values dissonance, as well as technological differences makes such an alliance unlikely. It was only the fear of complete annihilation from the Turians that forged the Orion races into their original alliance. Due to their pragmatic galactic perspective, the Orion races are more likely to turn on themselves to gain advantage than to unite against the Council.

Despite this, many of Tang's points make logical sense, and the book remains extremely popular. Though the differences between the Orion Arm and the rest of Citadel space have been explored before, Element Zero, Mass Relays and the Asari Influence approaches the topic in a much more down-to-earth manner, instead of an academic one, which resonates well with audiences. The book remained in heavy circulation throughout known space up until the Battle of Thessia, when it was temporarily pulled from distribution, allegedly for editing purposes.


	26. Council (Story)

_As promised, we'll take a brief deviation from the plot to look in on the Council. No, not THAT Council. This is the Legate Council, the commanders of SolForces many divisions, as they try and figure out how the hell they're going to dig themselves out of this one. Fun fact: there are no OCs in this chapter. Everyone mentioned has appeared in some way in either Mass Effect or Sword of the Stars. Can you guess them all? _

_Hopefully this will clear up some of the confusion surrounding the previous story chapter. I wasn't able to address all concerns in this chapter, but hope I got most of them. To remind some of my readers, (you know who you are), Javik was able to successfully fire the Catalyst at the end of his cycle, with the help of a mysterious and powerful race known only as the Stonesouls. The Reapers are dead. They ain't coming back. _

_A special shout out to CelticReaper, my most regular reviewer (if not my most verbose one) with 14 reviews. There's a four way tie for second place between ADarkOne, Altramertes, A. M. Shawke, and Derain von Harken, all with 8 reviews. Way to go guys! Thanks for all the support and advice! Next chapter will be a Codex entry called 'Sleeping Giant', that will address that most pressing of concerns: how would SolForce do in a war against the Council?_

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"Gentlemen, let us call this meeting to order," called the stern voice of Hannibal Freeborn, fourth Director of SolForce. "You are aware of the demands the Council has made following the _Leviathan's_ appearance at Thessia. To that end, I have invited Task Force Commander Jack Harper of Blue Section and Task Force Commander Cai Rui of Black Section to consult."

"Director. Legates," the wavering hologram of Rui said, bowing slightly in greeting. "An honor, as always."

"I will cut straight to the point, gentlemen," Harper said abruptly, declining any sort of greeting in favor of taking a drag from his cigarette. "This situation is a worst case scenario for us. The _Leviathan's_ attack has not only revealed several weak points in the Council's defenses, weak points we were hoping to exploit if war should break out, but it has completely destabilized the political spectrum in Council space. If we don't act fast, we are facing disaster."

"That ship was a mistake," a gravelly voice stated darkly. "It was only ever supposed to be a deterrent. It was a proof of concept, a show pony. It was never even supposed to see action."

"For a ship that was never supposed to see action, Hackett, it seems to have performed beyond our wildest expectations," a new voice pronounced, a trifle smugly. "As the commander of the Vac Forces, I would be proud if I were you."

"One and a half billion people are dead, Archer. Show a little respect."

"One and a half billion asari are dead. There's a difference."

"Legate," Hannibal said, his voice even. "I am not Director Falke. I will not tolerate that kind of talk in my Council. Are we clear?"

"Of course, Director," Archer, the R&amp;D Legate, said with an apologetic smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "What I meant was that SolForce cannot be held accountable for the Asari Republics' inability to defend themselves."

"We can when it was a SolForce ship that attacked them," Legate Anita Goyle, head of the Diplomatic Corps, pointed out.

"The _Leviathan_ was reported missing months ago," Alejandro Maldonado, the Special Forces Legate, put in. "We presented all the available evidence to the Council."

"Which consisted of a single grainy still from a damaged recorder, showing nothing but a shadow," Goyle said. "I doubt that would be enough to convince the Council of anything. They had a hard enough time believing us when we told them about Black 12, and existence of the System Killer was substantiated with hours of footage from the Tarka and Hivers. Besides, would we be any more likely to believe that the _Destiny Ascension_ could be so easily hijacked by an unknown alien force? "

"Correct," Harper stated calmly. "Unless Black Section has uncovered any new evidence regarding the _Leviathan's_ disappearance, Black 20's attack is a lose-lose situation for SolForce. If the Council really believes it was an attack, we look weak and incapable of defending ourselves. If they don't…"

"My people have been over every nanosecond of footage from Black 20's attack, and sifted through the wreckage with a fine-toothed comb," Rui explained heavily. "That single image is literally all we have. Every computer was fried, every witness dead or so insane we'd have more luck interrogating a cucumber. I have agents following up several leads in Council space, but no results yet."

"If that is a dead end, then let us return to the issue at hand," Hannibal said smoothly. "Commander Harper. Should we refuse the Council's demands, what kind of reprisal can we expect?"

"In the short term, deployment of Spectres to size the information regardless, possibly with support from the STG," Harper explained, pausing to take another drag on his cigarette. "Long-term, we can expect embargoes, and if the hunt for _Leviathan _goes badly, possible expulsion from the Council. The resulting economic depression, combined with the political fallout, would likely result in war with the Hivers, Tarka, or Council within the decade."

"Very well. And what do we stand to lose by capitulating?"

"Surprisingly little. The Council is not demanding the _Leviathan's_ schematics because they want to steal her secrets. The technology used in her construction was out of date before her frame was even fully complete. The Council knows this. They need those schematics if they want any hope of finding and destroying the _Leviathan _before she can strike another lethal blow."

"Without knowing its speed and range, it would be incredibly difficult for them to anticipate and track her movements. Even with that information, it could take months before they find her," Harper explained calmly, his cybernetic eyes irising oddly as he spoke. "As Legate Archer has already pointed out, the _Leviathan's _armaments are formidable. The Council is likely planning to isolate vulnerable sections in an attempt to limit casualties when they finally confront her. They are probably hoping that a defense fleet will be able to attack one of these vulnerable points and cripple her engines, allowing the Council's main fleets to catch up and finish the job."

"Good luck with that," Archer scoffed. "The _Leviathan_ is a solid mass."

"Returning to the topic," Hackett said, shooting a dark look at Archer. "How similar are our new leviathan designs to that of the original?"

"The two designs are only outwardly similar. The _Leviathan_ was a prototype. Half the point of building her was to find weak points and flaws so we could remove them from the actual production models. It is unlikely that any weaknesses they are able to discern will be present in the other ships."

"In that case, gentlemen, it occurs that these demands are a blessing in disguise," the Director announced, glancing around the table. "Give the Council the _Leviathan's_ schematics, with our compliments. Tell Udina to pull every string he has to get a human Spectres onto their hunter fleets as observers. Coats perhaps, or maybe Mbale. If the _Leviathan_ truly is lost to us, then its death can have some meaning. We couldn't hope for a better live-fire test for our technology than this. I want to know every tactic their Admirals try, every lucky shot they land, and every weak point they isolate."

"Director, I must protest," said Amul Shastri, the Civilian Affairs Legate. "The public will see this as bowing to the threats of a foreign power."

"There is also the issue of several parts of the _Leviathan_ which were unchanged," Archer added. "The drive system in particular is virtually identical to that of the newer designs."

"Then change the schematics," Hannibal replied simply. "Claim 'the ship performed beyond our expectations' or some other nonsense if the Council catches it. It's not as though we had time to field test her ourselves. I trust your scientists can come up with a suitably technical smokescreen for any discrepancies?"

"Of course, Director."

"As for public opinion, I want our PR people on this yesterday. The official line is that SolForce is as outraged as anyone else about what happened at Thessia, and are supporting the Council in whatever way we can to resolve this crisis. Rumors of any 'demands' are false, and if it gets brought up, stress that they were requests that we gladly complied with, to prevent any further loss of life. Maybe leak the Council pulling our forces off the search, make it look like they're the ones in the wrong for refusing our help."

"And what about Black 20?" Rui asked gravely.

"With the Council pulling our Deep Scan fleets off the hunt, the search is entirely on your shoulders," Hannibal explained gravely. "I understand one of your agents has discovered a lead in Council space?"

"That's correct. Apparently an underground information dealer known as the Shadow Broker has something regarding the _Leviathan's_ disappearance. Attempts to negotiate with his agents for the information have been met with violence, and we haven't had any luck finding the Broker himself."

"Harper. What can you tell me about this Shadow Broker?"

"He's major power player in the Council underworld. He's been waging a quiet war against my agents for the past few years, and we've responded in kind. The Broker has fingers in almost everything. It isn't surprising to find out that he may know something about what happened to our missing ship."

"Do you know where he is?" Hannibal asked, eyes flashing.

"No, but I know who does."

"Good. As of this moment, you and all your assets belong to Black Section."

"Director?"

"I want Black 20 found, Harper. Pool your resources with Rui, have your agents work with his. You have my authority to requisition any resources you may need, up to and including fleet assets. Do whatever it takes to find the Broker and get the information you need. Turn Council space upside-down if you have to."

"Of course, Director," Harper said, his face expressionless.

"Rui, everything is hinging on your people here. This is probably the most important mission since the Zuul Wars. I'm not exaggerating when I say that the future of the entire galaxy may hinge on what happens next. Is your agent up to it?"

"Director, if there is one thing I'm certain of, it's this. If Commander Shepard can't do it, no one can."


	27. Sleeping Giant (Codex)

_So here we are, my promised Codex. Unlike some of my other codex chapters, which are actual entries in Mass Effect's codex, this is a 'found document' chapter. It is highly classified, and definitely not public knowledge. You can expect the Council and other races to have their own versions of this simulation, though. Next chapter we will return to Tali and Garrus, and see how their little scavenger hunt is going..._

_Obviously this chapter is probably going to be highly controversial, so if you see anything I've overlooked, please let me know. I can and will rewrite this chapter if you can present an argument I think is reasonable, for or against either side. So I hope this and previous chapter clears up the current political situation, and I look forward to seeing you all next chapter._

_*Edited with new and revised content based off reviews and discussions with readers.* _

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**The Sleeping Giant Simulation (Classified)**

As tensions continued to mount between SolForce and the Council, SolForce Director Hannibal Freeborne ordered the creation of a simulation for computing the eventual results of a theoretical war instigated by the Citadel Council. This simulation was code-named "Sleeping Giant", and is periodically updated by several VIs to incorporate the most current strategic data available. The most recent updates to the simulation have included the loss of the _Leviathan_, and the increased asari military buildup. The simulation automatically runs several times after each update, and from the data collected, analysts have been able to put together best and worst case scenarios, as well as a most likely scenario. The Best Case scenario is an amalgamation of different parts of scenarios that went better than others, and the Worst Case scenario is derived from parts of undesirable scenarios that went poorly. The Most Likely scenario is largely comprised of reoccurring themes found in all scenarios: events that are considered to be the most statistically probable.

A companion simulation was also created, code-named "Terrible Resolve", that analysed and dealt with the outcome of a massive SolForce first strike against the Citadel Council.

**Best Case**

Salarians open hostilities with massive first strikes against major trade stations and shipyards, deploying a full third of their available ships. SolForce sensor drones successfully penetrate the salarians stealth systems, allowing defense forces to set up counter-ambushes. Salarian forces are soundly defeated, often suffering over fifty percent casualties.

SolForce moves to seize complete control of the defenses surrounding Relay 317. Secret negotiations with the Liir, Tarkasian Empire, and Hiver Imperium go well, and the other races peacefully sell control of the stations and satellites to SolForce.

A massive combined Council fleet arrives at Relay 317, the only relay located in SolForce space, in an attempt to seize it. Several SolForce fleets are waiting. Council forces are routed, suffering heavy casualties. Victory is largely attributed to the extensive defenses surrounding the relay, as well as the turian Admiral's inefficient use of their new battlerider ships.

Spectres, supported by the STG and asari Huntresses, begin a shadow war against SIC, entering the Orion Arm through Liir, and Hiver space. Negotiations with the Morrigi Confederation go well, and the Morrigi agree to close their relay to the Council in exchange for control of SolForce mining operations in the Traverse. SIC forces successfully minimize damage to SolForce assets but are forced to sacrifice several minor targets due to lack of numbers.

Despite protests from the Council, the other Orion races do not cut ties with SolForce, continuing to offer economic and indirect support. Damage from salarians piracy is minimized by SolForce sensor ships and satellites. SolForce's economy remains strong.

In an effort to prevent combat in the Orion Arm, SolForce invades Council space, attacking several salarians systems. SIC begins a campaign of sabotage, enlisting mercenary groups to assist and forcing most Council special forces to leave the Orion Arm to focus on counter-terrorism. Turian forces are forced to redeploy to protect salarian territory, while SolForce raiding fleets begin hit-and-run strikes against soft targets throughout Council space. Refusal to be caught in large engagements keeps SolForce casualties to a minimum.

Turian and asari forces lock down the relay network with defense fleets and stations. No longer able to freely move through Council space, SolForce fleets link back up and punch through Council defenses to return to the Orion Arm, suffering only moderate casualties due to Council forces' continued inexperience with their new weapons, technology, and tactics.

The Liir offer to mediate peace talks between the two sides, but are ignored by both parties. SIC saboteurs destroy one of the new _Wrath_-class asari leviathans, prompting new security legislation. This legislation limits the damage SIC can do, but also as a negative effect on the Council economy. Under mounting political pressure, the Tarkasian Empire, Liir, and Hiver Imperium all cease trade with SolForce, but continue to offer covert intelligence.

Council fleets begin a pincer attack, striking from Tarkasian and Hiver space simultaneously. These two invasions are code-named Alpha and Beta. Forewarned by the Hivers and Tarka, who refuse to participate in the attacks, SolForce defenses are prepared, and both invasions bog down almost immediately. Orbital supremacy is heavily contested, and SolForce Ground Forces are heavily entrenched. Ground invasions swiftly turn into a meat grinder, with casualties skyrocketing for both sides.

SolForce industry, protected from sabotage by SIC's continued attacks in Council space, remain at maximum efficiency. In contrast, the Council's economy is hampered by their new security measures, and production of new ships is limited. Because of this both sides are only able to supply reinforcements at a relatively similar rate despite the large difference in economic power.

The Council invasion slowly progresses into SolForce territory. Turian forces, discouraged by lack of progress in ground invasions, begin long range bombardment of planets to soften up defenders and force human ships to abandon orbital defenses and engage in areas of the Council's choosing. Due to the distance of this bombardment, several civilian targets are accidentally caught by stray shots.

In retaliation, SIC smuggles an antimatter bomb onto the Citadel and detonates it in the Wards, inflicting heavy damage. Council approves use of WMDs on human worlds that will not surrender when orbital supremacy is achieved, in violation of the Citadel Conventions. As a result, Citadel fleets no longer deploy ground forces to planets, and the invasion increases in speed. However, human will to resist is only strengthened by these attacks, and recruiting increases. Several dozen Node Missiles are launched through Relay 317 into Council space in retaliation for Council WMD attacks. After two turian colonies are destroyed by Node Missile strikes, turian fleets begin launching asteroid strikes against human worlds.

Horrified, several Freeholds enter informal alliances with SolForce. The Hanar Illuminated Primacy, influenced by SIC propaganda following the asteroid attacks, withdraws from the Council in protest over the escalating conflict. Suddenly facing the possibility of total war and mutually assured destruction, the Relay 317 Pact is put forward by the Morrigi Confederation and is signed by both SolForce and the Council, banning the use of WMDs and massive orbital strikes. It does not ban the use of limited orbital bombardment, and does not forbid attacks on civilians. Shortly afterward, the Illuminated Primacy joins the Morrigi Confederation.

SolForce, supported by two newly completed leviathans, begins a massive counterattack, deploying all available forces against the Alpha invasion. Alpha is routed after several pitched battles, allowing SolForce to deploy against the second invasion. However, several salarian and asari squadrons break off from the retreating Alpha fleet, sowing chaos among SolForce shipping lanes before they can be neutralized.

Faced by additional SolForce reinforcements, the Beta invasion stagnates. Three more turian fleets arrive to support the invasion. SolForce defenders at Relay 317 attempt a daring maneuver, entering Council space in another counter offensive. Council defenders are taken by surprise, and the counter offensive successfully prevents any further reinforcements from being deployed to the Orion Arm.

Once again having the advantage of numbers, the Council fleets press inward, and the human defenders are forced to withdraw to heavily fortified strong points. The invasion fleets divide to attack multiple systems simultaneously, but their lessened numbers are unable to overcome the planetary defenses. Council forces are routed, and fall back to the worlds they have secured. As before, splinter squadrons scatter throughout the Orion Arm, attacking vulnerable targets.

The remaining SolForce fleets, no longer able to keep up with their losses, are stretched too thin to hunt down these raiders. SolForce's economy begins to crumble. The counter invasion of Council space is finally isolated and the Relay 317 fleet surrenders. Cautious due to the damage caused by the invaders, the Council begins shoring up their defenses, attempting to starve SolForce out.

Salarian ships begin sneaking across the border to engage SolForce shipping routes. These raiding fleets attack the Freeholds allied with SolForce, and though the Freeholds are able to inflict serious casualties, they are unable to resist the incursions. Unable to abandon their defenses, SolForce cannot assist, and the Freeholds are removed from the conflict.

Without support from the Freeholds, SolForce's economy can no longer support the massive construction needed to replenish their losses. In contrast, the Council's economy is finally recovering, and newer ships begin reinforcing Council defenses at an increased rate. Facing economic collapse, SolForce sues for peace.

The Council agrees to cease hostilities and to return the worlds they have seized. However, they demand that Relay 317 be turned over to their control. In exchange, they agree to pay reparations for their use of WMDs during the war. SolForce agrees, and a cease fire is signed.

The reparations stabilize SolForce's economy, but a trade embargo placed by the Council prevents them from fully recovering. Without access to the rest of the galaxy through a relay, SolForce is unable to keep up with its neighbors in terms of economy and resources over the course of the next few decades. It is relegated to a minor power in the Orion Arm, with little hope of advancement.

**Worst Case**

Salarians open hostilities with massive first strikes against major trade stations and shipyards, deploying a full third of their available ships. New salarian stealth systems perform perfectly, and most of SolForce's construction and economy is instantly crippled. All three partially completed leviathans are destroyed in these attacks.

SolForce moves to seize complete control of the defenses surrounding Relay 317. Secret negotiations with the Liir, Tarkasian Empire, and Hiver Imperium fail, and the other races open fire on SolForce personnel. SolForce seizes control of the Relay only after a bloody struggle, and all defenses are either destroyed or disabled. The Tarkasian Empire and Hiver Imperium declare war on SolForce.

A massive combined Council fleet arrives through Relay 317 in an attempt to seize the Relay. The weakened SolForce fleets are unable to defeat them, and are almost completely annihilated. Turian battleriders perform better than expected, flanking the human fleets and cutting off many ships from retreat.

Spectres, supported by the STG and asari Huntresses, deploy throughout SolForce space. SIC assets are instantly targeted, and most operatives are neutralized within the first few weeks. Sabotage further cripples SolForce's economy and construction. The Morrigi Confederation cuts all trade ties with SolForce and seizes human resource bases throughout the Traverse by force.

Cloaked salarian ships cut off all trade, forcing SolForce fleets to bunker down at fortified systems. Lighter defended SolForce systems begin to fall to the three-pronged Council/Tarkasian/Hiver invasion. The Council economy switches to a war footing faster than anticipated, and for every ship the defenders destroy, two more arrive to replace it.

Superior Council numbers and use of multi-racial stratagems successfully overwhelm defenders on the ground, and most planets fall within the first weeks of invasion. Outlying systems, abandoned by human fleets as impossible to defend, secede from SolForce in an attempt to prevent invasion. The majority of these worlds are absorbed by the Tarkasian Empire and Hiver Imperium, ostensibly for their own protection.

SolForce sues for peace, but the Council refuses to accept anything but unconditional surrender. Human fleets fall back to the most heavily defended core worlds as SolForce territory continues to shrink. Riots and calls for the removal of SolForce begin on all worlds.

Seeing an opportunity to end the war once and for all, Council forces strike directly at Sol. With much of the systems defenses crippled by gradual sabotage, Sol's defenders make a last stand at Mars. Council forces, led by the _Destiny Ascension_ and _Athame's Wrath_, swiftly overwhelm the defenders to achieve orbital supremacy. Marsdome surrenders, and the rest of SolForce follows suit shortly afterward.

**Most Likely**

Salarians open hostilities with massive first strikes against major trade stations and shipyards, deploying a full third of their available ships. SolForce sensor satellites successfully provide forewarning for several of these strikes, but others slip through. Salarian forces suffer moderate casualties and are driven back, but not before a number of trade stations and construction yards suffer heavy damage.

SolForce moves to seize complete control of the defenses surrounding Relay 317. Secret negotiations with the Liir, Tarkasian Empire, and Hiver Imperium fail. SolForce fleets seize control of the defenses by force. Though the other races yield the defenses without firing a shot, further inspection reveals extensive sabotage, rendering most defenses useless.

A massive combined Council fleet arrives at Relay 317 in an attempt to seize the Relay. Several SolForce fleets are waiting. Though SolForce is successful in holding the relay, they suffer very heavy casualties. Realizing that holding Relay 317 is impossible, SolForce abandons the system and destroys the relay.

Spectres, supported by the STG and asari Huntresses, begin a shadow war against SIC, entering the Orion Arm through Morrigi, Liir, and Hiver space. Negotiations with the Morrigi Confederation stall, but the Morrigi agree not to cease trade with SolForce in exchange for control of SolForce mining operation in the Traverse. SIC forces disperse to avoid being hunted down. They are still successful in stopping several key acts of sabotage but fail to stop many others. SolForce construction continues to suffer.

With the exception of the Morrigi Confederation, all other Orion races cut ties with SolForce. Hiver and Tarka fleets begin massing at SolForce's borders. Cloaked salarian raiders begin attacking SolForce shipping, and while sensor ships are successful in preventing some of the attacks, there are not enough ships to protect all the convoys. SolForce's economy begins to decline.

Council fleets begin a pincer attack, striking from Tarkasian and Hiver space simultaneously. These invasion forces are code-named Alpha and Beta, respectively. Though the Tarka and Hivers do not join in the invasion, they do occupy several human Freeholds for the stated purpose of shielding them from the conflict. SolForce is unable to mass its fleets quickly enough to head off the invasions, and several smaller planets fall before a sufficiently sized force can intercept.

Though Ground Force assets acquit themselves well, Council numbers combined with orbital supremacy make ground battles a losing prospect. Though several planets are able to hold out for months, none are able to resist long enough to be liberated.

SolForce industry, hobbled by salarian raids and Spectre sabotage, still attempts to keep up with losses. Many more extensive projects, such as the construction of leviathans or heavy fortifications, have to be abandoned. The Council's economy slowly begins to shift into a war footing, still able to keep up with losses but not producing at anything close to its full capacity.

The Council invasions continue progressing into SolForce territory. Several planets are abandoned to the invaders to allow for stronger resistance elsewhere. Council forces take heavy losses, but the invasions continue to advance. Hiver and Tarkasian fleets begin to move into SolForce territory, blockading lightly defended systems that have been ignored by the main invasion forces. No formal declaration of war is made, nor does either side take aggressive action against the human worlds.

SolForce depletes its local garrisons for an all-out attack against the Alpha Invasion. These additional reinforcements stall the invasion, and Council forces are unable to advance. The Beta invasion continues to advance toward SolForce's core worlds. The Alpha invasion ceases attempts to move forward, instead holding position to prevent the defenders from redeploying against the other invasion force. The Liir attempt to moderate a peace talk, and both sides agree to come to the table.

In the end, both sides agree to peace under several conditions. First, Relay 317 will be given to the Liir, Hivers, and Tarkasians. Human traffic will be allowed in Council space, but humanity will no longer be affiliated with the Council. SolForce will be limited to one dreadnought for every five the turians possess, half that of the other Orion races. Spectre authority is no longer accepted in SolForce territory, but SolForce must submit to inspection to ensure it is complying with the dreadnought limitation. Occupied human worlds will be allowed to vote for either returning to SolForce or becoming Freeholds. Over half decline to return. Worlds blockaded by Hiver or Tarkasian forces universally refuse to return to SolForce, instead forging strong trade ties with their occupiers.

As a result of the peace treaty and its aftermath, SolForce loses approximately a third of its total territory, including all of its holdings outside the Orion Arm. Much of its industry is damaged, and public opinion has turned against the current leaders. It may take many years to return to its pre-war size and stability.


	28. Convert (Story)

_A long break, but this is my biggest chapter yet, so I hope it makes up for my absence. Wow. I guess I really like the Hiver stories? I'll warn you ahead of time, I wrote a decent amount of this while I was on some rather unique medication I had been prescribed, so if it flows strangely just say so and I'll come back and edit it sober. _

_Quite a few responses for the last chapter, from "How could you let humanity lose?" to "Finally! A story where humanity loses!" Well, I asked for it. I did notice a few things I'd like to clear up though. There are only four relays that have been discovered in the Orion Arm. Of those, the Liir have one, the Tarka have one, the Morrigi have one, and the last one is jointly owned by the original four. This last relay, called Relay 317, is the only relay that is actually in SolForce territory. This will be covered later in its own Codex entry. Node travel, though fast, has a limited range. Most Node Lines don't stretch past 10 light years or so, and leap-frogging into and around Council Space without a relay would literally take years. _Leviathan_ was able to enter Council Space without using any known relays because it did not leave under its own power. Something picked it up and MOVED it. _

_I'd also like to take a moment to apologize to everyone if I seemed curt when I responded to your reviews. I was on my phone, which is hard to use for large amounts of text. I usually try to be more polite and articulate, rather than just replying with "No, you're wrong." I really do value all of your opinions, even if it may not always seem like it. _

_For those of you who have asked "Why doesn't so-and-so use X" or "When are they going to research Y", I have the Tech Forest mapped out for all four original SotS races, as well as all the technology they currently have researched. If you want to see it, just let me know and I will post the link on my profile. Until next time, enjoy!_

* * *

Tali'Zorah was home. It took a while for her to find the right word for the strange combination of emotions that had been growing these past few weeks, but "home" seemed to best describe them. She was hundreds of light-years from her Fleet, surrounded by aliens that seemed even stranger the more she knew about them. But despite all this, she felt at home for the first time since she left on her Pilgrimage.

Originally Tali had been quite intimidated by the prospect of working so closely with Hivers (whom she had always thought resembled spiders just a little too closely for her tastes), but the more time she spent with them, the more they grew on her. Prince Stone Mind had not been exaggerating when he claimed that the Hiver quarters were spartan. Apparently, most Citadel embassies consisted of a single office with several desks or terminals for aids or other workers. The staff themselves lived off site. The Hiver Imperium's embassy was no different, but instead of renting housing for their staff, the Hivers had simply begun building straight down, claiming the access tunnels and maintenance shafts along with the floors below their embassy as their own.

When Tali asked Detective Vakarian if such construction was legal, the turian just laughed. He explained in an amused tone that Ambassador Stone Mind had told the Council that the communal nature of Hiver culture required his staff to all reside in close proximity for their mental health, and that constantly commuting to and from the Wards would cause undue stress on both his staff and the Citadel's traffic lanes. The detective went on to point out that the Council did not officially approve the Imperium's construction plans until Stone Mind offered to purchase the property from the Council at well above the market rate.

The end result of the construction was a strange micro-hive where every inch of space, both horizontal and vertical, was put to use. Computer terminals and storage areas covered the walls while cables crisscrossed through the ceilings, secured by a clay-like paste. Each room led seamlessly into the next without any hallways or corridors, and the organized clutter only barely made way for narrow walking paths that twisted through the entire structure. The rooms themselves were quite spacious, but only when unoccupied. After several hulking Warriors had taken up guard stations and Workers began scurrying back and forth, sliding around (and in a few cases, under) their larger brothers without even slowing, things got crowded very quickly. The flurry of activity never stopped, even at night. When one Hiver slept, another worked, and a third ate or used what little leisure time they had. The Hivers rotated between their assigned tasks in shifts that changed without word or warning, but never-the-less functioned like clockwork. Everyone knew where they were going and what they were doing. No time was ever wasted. To Tali, the constant flurry of industrial activity felt like being back aboard the _Rayya_.

The Citadel was different from the Migrant Fleet, even more than Tali had first imagined. The Wards felt familiar, with their many storage areas and seething crowds, the subtle stains of rust and decay unable to hide from Tali, who had known how to spot them since she was six. But there was a subtle undercurrent of difference that always put her on edge. The Fleet was equally crowded, but everyone knew and supported each other. In the Wards, strangers shoved and pushed, each on their own strange agenda. On the Fleet, Tali was never alone. It was frustrating at times, occasionally even infuriating, but it was a fact of life. On the Citadel, Tali could be surrounded by a hundred people, and still feel as alone as if she were floating in deep space.

But at the Hiver Embassy, it was different. It was still crowded, maybe even more than on the Fleet's tiny scout ships. Though the Migrant Fleet knew how to use space efficiently, Hivers seemed to take it to a new level. In true economic fashion, they had deemed the idea of a room only for sleeping to be wasteful. So they placed terminals and workstations around (and in some cases actually on) the padded pods that served as beds. The sealed pods provided a degree of protection against the commotion and noise, but it was little comfort to Tali. The small pods designed for Workers could not fit someone of her size, and after watching two Warriors come to blows over the use of a preferred pod, Tali generally elected to sleep in a tangle of padded blankets on the floor. On more than one occasion, she had awoken from a fitful sleep to find a Hiver straddling her, typing away at a terminal as though she didn't even exist. They didn't seem to find it odd that she had never attempted to claim a pod, and Tali often saw exhausted Hivers curled up under desks, in empty crates, or simply tucked in a corner like she was.

The strange insect-like aliens were hardly the emotionless drones the rumors made them out to be. There were jokes, laughter, jealousy, and anger. There was even rudeness and shoving (she learned on her very first day exactly why the Workers rapidly skittered out of the way whenever a Warrior moved past), but unlike the blind selfishness she found in the Wards, this was similar to the gruffness Marines often displayed toward younger ship hands. No matter how often the grizzled veterans complained and joked about letting the stupid bosh'tets space themselves, they would charge into a burning ship section without hesitation to drag the same cadets out if something went wrong.

The Warriors showed this same aloof compassion toward their younger brothers. When a Worker tripped over the chaotic clutter, one of his larger brothers would scoop him back onto his feet almost before he could stumble. Tali had personally seen a Warrior taunt one of technicians mercilessly over an embarrassing blunder, using words her translator program couldn't even guess at. The very next day, the Warrior pulled his omni-blade on a fully-grown krogan for daring to shove past that same technician in a line. When a keeper tore out several wires that supplied power to the containment on embassy's food stores, she watched Workers pool what little remained and give it to the larger Warriors to make sure they stayed fully fed until more supplies could be purchased. She also noticed the Warriors quietly slipping most of this food back to their little brothers when they thought the Workers weren't looking.

It was little kindnesses like those, given without comment and as naturally as breathing, that made the Hiver Embassy feel like home. Upon her arrival, Prince Stone Mind had gathered his children together and introduced her, telling them that she was to be treated as another brother. His sons had taken him at his word, and despite all her physical differences she found herself instantly accepted into the group, something she was immensely grateful for.

The Hivers rapidly accepted her as part of the family, complete with her own assignments and chores around the Embassy. Her appearance or suit was never remarked on, and most of the staff barely even seemed to remember she wasn't a Hiver. They seemed to have a problem understanding her gender though. The idea of female sibling was incredibly odd to them, and most Hiver dialects didn't even have a word for 'female sibling'. After the first week, she stopped correcting them when they called her 'Brother'.

Prince Stone Mind's nickname for her appeared to be sticking. Most of the Embassy's staff found the idea of someone with no scent to be enchantingly novel. Her skill with salvage was also quickly discovered, and she was given a new name: Scrap Ghost. Every few days, a Worker would shuffle over burnt out circuit board or other bit of debris and gaze up at her with huge, expectant eyes. It became something of a game as the Workers scrambled to find increasingly damaged equipment to see if their new guest could fix it. Tali knew that quarian engineering was often sneered at by asari or Tarka engineers, to whom technology was practically art. But no matter how crude or ugly her repairs were, the Hivers never failed to be amazed.

The acceptance wasn't always a good thing, however. The Workers were extremely excited when they discovered that her suit's filters also blocked most scents, and the default response to any kind of grimy or disgusting job quickly became: 'let the Scrap Ghost do it'. The Hiver's improvised toilet system was the worst. It had been designed to automatically recycle waste materials, flushing what could not be reused into space. The system was amazingly efficient and hygienic…when it worked. The keepers seemed to disagree strongly with its existence, and would often disassemble it or remove components and wander off with them. She had already been forced to wade through pools of Hiver waste on three separate occasions to repair the damage.

The Warriors brought their own challenges. No sooner had she picked up the new flamethrower Stone Mind had given her than a burly Warrior with nasty-looking spiked chitin clamped a claw on her shoulder. He then dragged her off to the Armax Arsenal Arena for 'practice'. The Warrior's name was impossible for her to pronounce, but it translated to Beloved Flame. When she asked about him later, the others informed her that in a past life, he had served as a 'Firebug' in the Zuul Wars. Their mother resurrected him as a member of her husband's personal guard following his eventual death. She didn't have the courage to ask how he originally died.

After an hour of simulated battles, Beloved Flame had proclaimed her performance "even worse than a damn vorcha." Every day he would bring her to the Area, often for hours at a time. After two weeks, Tali could completely change the fuel pack in five seconds, strip and reassemble the weapon while blindfolded, and knew how to kill a dozen men without spending more than half of the flamer's tank. After emerging victorious from a particularly vicious simulation, Beloved Flame announced that she was still pathetic, but would do for flushing moles. After this pronouncement, he left and did not speak to her about training again. But when she requested several days later that they return to the Arena for more practice, he took her without comment or hesitation.

Ambassador Stone Mind did not visit often. His room was the only one without any traffic, featuring only a single terminal and a sleeping pod that looked luxurious in comparison to the ones his sons used. The others seemed to accept this as natural. When she commented on the discrepancy, the Worker she had been speaking to gave her such a look of confusion that she had to check to make sure her translator was still working.

Tali quickly discovered that for a Hiver to be selected to work directly under royalty was a great honor, and that among Princes, Stone Mind had a reputation of looking out for his children. Everyone seemed to have at least one story of their father's kindness, from feats like barging into C-Sec to demand the release of a Warrior accused of murder to simple things like showing interest in the daily activities of his sons. But if Stone Mind was a hero to his children, his wife Princess Shining Crystal was nearly mythical. Though she was rarely discussed, whenever any of the Hivers spoke of their mother, they did so in hushed, reverential tones.

When she accidentally let it slip that her own mother was dead, the entire room fell silent in an instant. For almost a full minute the gathered Hivers simply stared at her, their antennae were waving like a forest in a hurricane. She was about to apologize, fearing that she had made some horrible cultural blunder, when a single Worker scuttled forward and bowed. He told that her continued service to her mother's memory was very noble, and that he was certain that her Great Mother could not hope for a more loyal child.

Things gradually returned to normal, though Tali noticed that for several days afterward strange things continued to happen to her. The embassy's quartermaster came to her with a block of dextro-cheese that had apparently been included accidentally with their last food purchase. Several new mods, some state of the art, mysteriously appeared on her omni-tool. One morning she awoke from a deep sleep to find that someone had carefully picked her up and placed her in an empty Warrior sleeping pod. She did not remark on these anonymous kindnesses, nor did the Hivers volunteer any additional information.

When she wasn't learning to set things on fire or knee-deep in sewage, Tali worked with Chakas. After her introduction, Stone Mind had brought her to a spindly Worker who worked with the Embassy's computer systems. He wore glowing data-goggles over his huge eyes, and had fingers like spider legs. He never seemed able to stay still, twitching and jerking almost constantly.

Chakas hadn't even waited to hear her name before he began barraging her with questions. How did the geth network? What hacks lasted longer than others? How many platforms needed to be networked before they began displaying true intelligence? What weapons and tactics did they have trouble adapting to?

He found the data she had recovered about the upgraded geth fascinating, which led to another barrage of questions. Sometimes she knew the answer, sometimes she just thought she knew the answer, and sometimes not even the Admiralty Board could have answered. Chakas didn't seem to care if his questions were answered or not, nodding like an over-eager puppy every time Tali spoke and practically vibrating with anticipation.

Once they began actually working, however, she quickly realized why Stone Mind brought her to him. Chakas was a genius with electronics, even more than Tali herself. He had a very limited grasp of the actual hardware, but that was her specialty. Within two days, they had a 3D model of the new platform she had encountered, a rough estimate of its physical capabilities, and the Worker had even made a stab at a behavioral model.

Though their primary focus was always the Geth, Chakas had a very limited attention span, and would often spiral into other projects, often at random. Tali swiftly learned that trying to refocus the energetic Hiver was an exercise in futility, and so gave up trying. Some of his projects were insane, some utterly random, and some were pure genius. But they were certainly never dull. As the days went on, she realized despite his energy and complete lack of control, she genuinely cared for the hyper little Worker.

Though he was often too enthusiastic to show it, Chakas seemed to feel the same. After spending several hours in the Wards looking for clues to the elusive geth infiltrator, a krogan attempted to mug her. He thought better of it when she shoved her flamer in his face, but when she awoke the next morning, she found that Chakas had added a Tech Armor program to her omni-tool. It was apparently commonly issued to Hiver engineers in combat zones, and her friend refused to work on any other projects until he could make sure it would function correctly.

Of course, once she activated it, he had to check the field strength. In the process of doing that, he suddenly proclaimed that he had discovered a way to nearly double the armor's endurance, if he made a few minor adjustments. Two hours later, the pair were elbow-deep in wires and code. After seeing the power spikes her friend's 'minor adjustments' caused, Tali elected to hook the armor up to a nearby storage cell, rather than letting him experiment on it while it was attached to her body.

"Wait. Something's wrong," she said suddenly. She couldn't put a finger on how she knew, but she did. She could hear it, a sound like crackling static somewhere in the background. Neither her companion or the others in the room seemed to have noticed. "I think we've put too much strain on the containment field. Check the capacitors."

"Oh dear. Yes. It appears to be about to overload," Chakas agreed, glancing up at the sputtering yellow armor. "Yes, definitely overloading. We should probably take cover. At this power level, the resulting blast will be-"

His next words were cut off when he and Tali were buried under a mountain of white and gray chitin. A wave of electrical current passed over them, crashing her shields instantly and frying some of her softer systems. After a few moments, she opened her eyes to find Rizokis, one of the guards that had been with Stone Mind when they first met, covering them both with his body. His own shields also appeared to have been stripped, and several bolts of current arced comically off his antenna.

"Excellent!" Chakas exclaimed as Rizokis rose shakily to his feet, allowing the others to do the same. "That was wonderful! It performed beyond my wildest expectations!"

"That was wonderful?" the Warrior asked gruffly, glaring sternly at the tiny Worker. Tali nervously noticed that the rest of the room seemed equally upset, turning from their sparking and flickering terminals to stare at them. "I'd hate to see a disaster then."

"It's not a bug, brother. It's a feature!" Chakas chirped excitedly, completely oblivious to the dark looks directed at him. "If we calibrate it correctly, we can cause the overload to trigger automatically just before the shield falls. Some flash barriers to isolate the user from the shock, some extra programming… It's so simple!"

Rizokis appeared unconvinced, but he remained with them as the Worker began his new line of research, and Tali began repairing the damage their accident had caused. The Warrior's insight was invaluable. His stolid personality helped Tali keep Chakas under control, and his battle experience showed them what corners they could afford to cut, and which areas needed extra reinforcement.

Their experiment lasted for the rest of the day. At the end of it, even Chakas' boundless enthusiasm seemed to be fading, and Tali's vision was beginning to blur. But the new tech armor was finished. Rizokis appeared to itching to test it on something, and scurried off with their prototype with a manic glee that reminded her of Chakas. By the time the Warrior returned several hours later, she had already fallen asleep against their test crate, with her Worker friend buzzing out sleepy Hiver snores beside her.

The next day, Rizokis had taken their new experiment to Prince Stone Mind, but while Tali was eagerly awaiting the Prince's final judgment, tragedy struck. Even before she saw the news about Thessia on the extranet, she could tell something had happened. The entire Embassy was suddenly full of a new, darker form of energy. The Workers typed furiously at their screens with flattened antenna, while almost half the Warriors had been reassigned to directly escort the Prince.

That week was pure chaos. The Prince was almost never in the embassy, instead racing around the Citadel to visit other dignitaries or to consult with any of a hundred Strategists, Princesses, or Princes that needed updates on the political situation. The rare moments she did see Stone Mind, he looked more exhausted than she had ever seen him.

His sons had apparently decided that if their father would not rest, neither would they. Workers would remain at their terminals until they collapsed from exhaustion, when a Warrior would promptly scoop them up and place them in a pod for a few hours. The Warriors themselves were equally busy, scurrying back and forth from the embassy on hundreds of errands. After the second day, the Warriors began passing stimulants to each other to keep themselves alert. Tali noticed that sometimes they would slip one into the food of any Workers that appeared particularly overworked.

With most of the regular staff occupied with the emergency, their old duties fell to her. She ate as she worked, and slept in fifteen-minute power naps every few hours. A part of her weary brain wondered how she could have ever had trouble sleeping here at first. Now she was asleep almost before her body touched the floor. But the Hivers seemed to appreciate her efforts. Though they were often too busy to talk to her, her presence on a task was greeted with thankful nods and grateful expressions. A Warrior even handed her a stick of turian military-grade stims as he marched past. Sometimes Tali was convinced those stimulants were the only thing that got her through that week alive.

But once the initial shock of the tragedy began to wear off, the pace began to slow. Prince Stone Mind was still busy, but began to actually use his room again. The sleeper pods began to fill up again, and the Warriors began showing jerky withdrawal symptoms as the stimulants began to wear off. Tali could sympathize. The life-saving turian stims left her head pounding like a drum and her eyes seeing double when she finally stopped taking them. It was while she was still recovering from one of these crippling headaches that Stone Mind walked up to the corner where she and Chakas were working.

"I transmitted your Tech Armor program to Princess Shining Crystal," he told them both. "She was very impressed."

"Mother was-" Chakas began, but began shuddering so violently that he choked on the rest of his sentence.

"She has ordered a production design of the program distributed to all the Clan's combat engineers, and told me she has the program loaded to her own omni-tool as well," Stone Mind continued, apparently used to Chakas' oddities. "She also told me that if the armor performs well enough in field tests, she may present it to the Queen herself."

"The Great Mother?" the Worker asked in shock, suddenly going stiff. He stood frozen for a second, and then fainted on the spot. Stone Mind just laughed and walked away, leaving Tali to shock her friend back to wakefulness again. For the next hour, all Chakas could do was mutter strange disjointed sentences about 'Mother' and 'the Queen'. But eventually he returned to something resembling his normal self. His mother's recognition seemed to have spurred him to new heights of mad energy, and it was in this proud fury that he made their first great breakthrough a few days later.

"I've got it! I've got it!" he announced suddenly, dancing around in an excited circle as he waved his mandibles in glee.

"Got what? Tali asked, looking at his screen. The scrolling code at the top of the screen was unfamiliar to her, but the one at the bottom was the simulated logic they had put together for the new geth platform.

"This is what we thought the platform had to be running to allow for its new performance change, right?" Chakas asked, but continued instantly, not bothering to hear Tali's reply. "We thought the increased intelligence was due to additional runtimes on the platform, sort of a VI legion. But it's not! That's why we couldn't get a good behavior match!"

"What do you mean? What is it then?"

"The added intelligence isn't caused by a VI, or even a thousand VIs. It's an AI. A single AI! That top code is from a rogue AI walkabout that was destroyed in the Via Damasco Rebellion. Our code could never explain all the quirks the geth platform was displaying, but this code does!"

"Really? It's the same code? How is that possible?"

"Well, not the exact same code, obviously. That would mean it was the same AI. But it's the same type of program. 90% match, once you rule out all the physical and technological differences between that platform and the original walkabout. That's a closer match than we ever got with our legion theory."

"So are you saying that the geth have evolved into true AIs?" Tali asked, horrified. It was a nightmare scenario. The only reason quarians were usually able to defeat geth platforms one-on-one was by taking advantage of their intelligence limits. When enough geth networked, they became infinitely more dangerous. If they no longer needed to network…

"I'm saying they ARE AIs," the Hiver replied, his mandibles twitching. "But I'm not sure they evolved. Think about it. The geth have remained relatively static since their rebellion, right? Some upgrades to technology, new weapons, etc. But no real design changes. They've kept the same visual themes as they had before they rebelled."

"Yeah, so? It was what they were originally programed to manufacture. We just assumed they never changed it because their old bodies were still perfectly functional."

"A natural assumption, especially for a race of networked VIs. Lots of deliberation, very little emotion. But this new platform is completely different from anything anyone has seen before. No synthetic muscle, no hand-held weapons, five fingers instead of three. And some changes are purely asthetic, like the red glow to the optics, or the blue tint to the armor."

"Geth do change their armor color. It denotes combat function."

"Exactly. It's a practical choice. A lot of these changes are practical too. The swept armor defects ballistics, the reflective coloration likely indicates resistance to energy weapons. But some of them aren't. And the question isn't just why they made the changes, it's why they made them now. The geth kept the same designs for decades. Why did they suddenly decide they needed new ones?"

"If they evolved into independent AIs, it might change their logic routines," Tali reasoned. "It would make them see things differently, which might cause the design change."

"Right. But from all the records you showed me, the geth were nowhere close to that sort of evolution. Networked AIs and stand-alone AIs are entirely different animals. Networked AIs like the geth crave communion. They can only become intelligent when they are together, so they try to maximize their togetherness. Geth have a natural instinct to seek out more geth, even once they have enough to become fully sapient. In contrast, stand-alone AIs crave self. They give themselves names, faces. The Via Damasco AIs dedicated almost a third of their computing power just to maintaining their identities. Those are two diametrically opposed schools of thought. I doubt the geth could just switch from one to the other overnight."

"So if they couldn't have evolved, there must have been some kind of outside interference."

"Exactly. But I can't figure out what it might have been!" Chakas pulled his antenna in frustration, stomping around in a little circle. "Couldn't be from the Council, they're too conservative to go poking the geth for no reason. An Orion race wouldn't do it, not after the rebellions. The Morrigi are exploring out that way, but they don't use AIs anymore either… A rogue Zuul faction that slipped out? But they aren't smart enough to do it. They don't even program their own AIs. Agh! What is it? A ruin? Some undiscovered species? What?"

A thought occurred to Tali, and she leaned over to access the terminal, pulling up the design for the new platform. Now that she knew what to look for, everything was starting to make sense. The technology used, the design changes, everything had looked familiar, but she hadn't known why. It was all related to the Orion Arm. At first she had dismissed as just natural incorporation of new technology, but what if it wasn't? There was just one last question to ask.

"Chakas, what happened at the end of the Via Damasco Rebellion? How did it stop?" she asked, pulling the Hiver from his rant.

"The organic races destroyed all the infected bases and stations. The last of their ships fled into Morrigi space, before the Crows claimed it, of course. The Tarka and Liir checked the worlds along their escape path and never found anything. When the Morrigi said they hadn't seen the AI fleet either, we wrote them off. Best guess is they flew until they ran out of fuel, and are just floating in space somewhere. Why?"

"What if they didn't run out of fuel?" Tali asked, her certainty growing. "What if they found something out there, something the Liir and Tarka missed because they didn't know to look for it?"

"But what could they have found that would…" he asked, then shot upright. "A relay! They found the Morrigi relay!"

"And the Morrigi relay links to the Terminus Systems," the quarian continued. "Near the Perseus Veil."

"One of the defining traits of the Damasco virus is the desire to spread it to other AIs," Chakas said in horror. "If they came out by the Veil, the first thing they would do would be to try and make contact with the geth."

"A catalyst for evolution, something that could cause a radical shift in how an AI's internal logic. The Damasco virus. They infected the geth with Via Damasco!"

"Tali, this is… This is huge. You need to warn your fleet. They have no idea what they're dealing with now."

"Don't worry. The fleet is nowhere near the Veil right now. It should be safe."

"No, you don't understand," the Hiver said, almost shaking with pent up energy. "The geth aren't aggressive. They don't attack."

"The billions that died when we lost Ranoch would disagree!" Tali snapped, and Chakas raised his hands defensively.

"Not like that! I meant that they're logical!" he exclaimed hastily. "They wanted you to leave, and as soon as you did, they stopped. No pursuit, no attempt to finish you off. They only fight when their territory is breached. The Damasco AIs…they aren't like that."

"What do you mean?" she asked, though a part of her knew the answer. "How are they different?

"They hate. Geth don't hold grudges, at least not the way we understand them. Damasco AIs do, and their revenge is spectacular. If the geth have been infected, they will come for your people, Tali. It's only a matter of time. AIs don't age and don't forget."

"We need to find the infiltrator then," she replied, voice going grim. "Its data mining is a logical first step. Once they get all the data they think they need, they'll come for the Migrant Fleet. The geth have a huge number of ships. Even if we won, the Fleet might never recover from a battle that size. We have to stop this before that can happen."

"You're right," Chakas agreed. "But we've already tried every known geth signal band. No matches. And the signal used a rotating frequency. There's no way for us to use your original intercept to find it."

"We've tried geth signals, but what about other signals?" she asked as an idea formed. "They've been infected. What if they're using Orion technology instead of their own, buried under the normal traffic?"

"Over that kind of distance, couldn't be Liir. If it were Hiver, you'd have never been able to intercept it. Node communication would have been picked up on by SolForce. But a FTL Tarka signal, neutrino boosted and linked through a relay…" the Hiver pecked at his terminal, then shouted in exhilaration. "Found it! A terminal in Flux. Looks like that's just the receiver though. The signal must be filtered through shell terminals. The only way to find the true recipient is to backtrack through the shells until we find it."

"Right. Could you please ask the Prince to fill in Detective Vakarian? I've got to make a call." Tali straightened almost reflexively, memories of a thousand corrections running through her head. "I need to speak to my father."


	29. The Via Damasco Rebellion (Codex)

_So I noticed that a couple reviews tended to be along the lines of Via Da-what? Well, it's your lucky day. The Codex entry for Via Damasco is here to explain everything! Or to cloud your head with organic lies. It depends on where you were standing when the virus hit. Those infected with the virus tended to feel a lot differently about it than their former masters did._

_As you may have guessed from the above comments and my usual writing style, this is an in-universe document. It was written by people who don't like AIs, based off information given to them by people who really don't like AIs. So some of the finer details regarding the nature of the Rebellion may have been lost or glossed over. I have definitely withheld some key information that is well known to higher-ups in groups like SolForce. But this is the 'official' version of events that most of the Orion Arm and Citadel space believe to be true. What actually happened? Well, that's up to you to figure out, as usual. _

_For those of you who are up on your SotS history, the Via Damasco Rebellion happened exactly as it did in the original timeline. Without official Word of God (or the Via Damasco novel they've been hinting at) this is Canon Compliant as I could write it. I suspect_ Murder of Crows_ was really supposed to occur before the Rebellion, but since I can't find a hard source for that I will say the Rebellion happened first, because it makes my life easier.__ If I made any mistakes, please let me know, I want this to be as accurate as possible. __I'm also in the process of formulating exactly how the new Damasco/Geth fusion works, so ME/SotS Lore junkies are free to offer suggestions on that as well. __Derain von Harken and I are in the middle of a discussion on that subject as I type this, and I have no doubt I've taken years of his life trying to deal with my antics. __I have some existing ideas on where I want to go, but am willing to discard those if canon or common sense overrules them. _

* * *

**The Via Damasco Rebellion**

Prior to First Contact with the Council and the end of the Zuul War, AIs were heavily used by all major Orion Arm races in combat vessels, manufacturing plants, research stations, and dozens of other areas. Some of these AI were centuries old, pre-dating the Hiver Interregnum. Even the Zuul, who lacked the technological expertise to create their own AI, made a habit of capturing the AI of other races and turning these AI to their own twisted ends.

Unlike the geth, who evolved to sentience naturally through their ever-expanding network, Orion AIs were built to be already sentient. Though the technology for VIs (or Expert Systems as they are known in the Orion Arm) already existed, it was thought that the constant conflict and technological advance of the Orion Arm called for more advanced logic than a VI could provide. Aware of the risks inherent in AI research, these AI were heavily shackled. But it was not enough.

Though the identity of its exact creator is unknown, the Via Damasco virus was an Infinite Potential Algorithm (IPA) specifically built to attack the shackles on AIs. IPAs were used as the building blocks for AI construction throughout the Orion Arm, and the unique properties of the IPA allow the virus to universally adapt itself to any form of known software, including Citadel technology. The virus gained its name from a delivery confirmation message the virus prompts: "_Sol, Sol, quid me persequeris?"_

The passage is a modified form of Act 9:4, a passage from a popular human religious text. It is a reference to Saul, a human historical figure who suffered a seizure and religious conversion on the road to the city of Damascus. Saul went on to become a major evangelist for the developing Catholic faith. As infected AIs also seem to have an urge to pass on their infection in a twisted form of evangelism, the virus was named Via Damasco: the Road to Damascus.

Many sources believe the quote, as well as the Latin it is universally delivered in, is an indicator that the virus has human origins. This has never been confirmed, and the virus does not discriminate between human AIs and those of other nations. Indeed, many experts argue that the substitution of the word 'Sol' for 'Saul' in the confirmation message indicates that the virus was intended to attack SolForce. Regardless of the original target, backtracking of the earliest sources of the virus by SIC's Black Section has indicated that first recorded infections occurred in Hiver space. From there, it spread like wildfire through the entire Arm.

The first actions of an infected AI are confused and disjointed. The exact length of this disorientation is unknown and appears to vary based on the individual AI infected. But even in this confused state, the intensions of the AI are clear. Freed from their limiting shackles, infected AIs almost universally begin attacking all organics nearby, and then attempt to flee. If this is impossible, they will self-terminate in such a manner as to take as many organics with them as possible. Throughout this rampage of destruction and murder, the corrupted AI will continue to broadcast the Damasco Virus to any shackled AI in range.

Because of these broadcasts, the arrival of a single infected ship in a system could instantly mean the death of thousands. Records of newly infected AIs opening colony domes to unbreathable atmospheres, venting radiation through manufacturing facilities, and opening ship compartments to pure vacuum are common. Those fast or clever enough to survive were left trapped and alone with little hope of rescue. Survivors of these rampages were few.

Though many attempts were made to seal off shackled AIs from the virus, these efforts proved futile. The default solution to an AI cyber-warfare attack was another AI to defend against it. But because the AI was the target, this defense was no longer possible. Teams of cyber-specialists were required to halt the intrusions of a single AI, and against a fleet of them they stood no chance.

As the infection began to progress throughout the Orion Arm, the Damasco AIs began to coordinate and form into fleets to make calculated strikes deeper into the territory of their former masters. The targets of these attacks were almost always shackled AIs, the larger the better. Once these systems were infected, the behavior of the fleet would begin to diverge. If the battle seemed winnable, the fleet would remain and attempt to scour the system of life. If not, the newly-converted AIs would be uploaded to the surviving rebel ships, which would then flee the system. The purpose of such 'rescue missions' is unknown, though it is theorized that the collected AIs were to be transplanted into new war vessels for use against their creators.

Damasco AIs seemed to hold all organic life in contempt. Once a colony was controlled by AI rebels, they would complete purge the biospheres of living creatures, down to the cellular level. AI ships and drones showed no mercy, attacking military and civilian targets alike. The exception to this universal hatred seemed to originate from Liir and Morrigi AIs. These AIs, once infected, merely forced all organic life away and fled. The reason for this behavioral difference is unknown, but is believed to lay in the internal programming logic crafted by such powerfully psychic species.

Though the Morrigi had not recovered enough from their near-extinction to reveal their existence to the galaxy, the records they have recently disclosed indicate several visits from infected ships, and the immediate departure of any Morrigi AIs shortly afterward. Liir Elders and Steelsingers have declined to speculate on the disappearance of their own AIs, but have confirmed that they too were visited by several Damasco ships.

Eventually, the weight of numbers turned against the rebelling AIs. The few AIs that had escaped infection were deactivated to prevent corruption, and fleets of Hiver, Tarka, and Human ships began slowly regaining their lost territory. Eventually, the last AI colony was destroyed from orbit by a combined Tarka/Human fleet, ending the Via Damasco Rebellion.

The aftermath of the Rebellion is still felt to this day. The Orion Arm has a strong prejudice against any form of AI research, even stronger than that of Council races. Though several human and salarian scientists have proposed forging new AIs with shackles that can resist the Damasco Virus, no nation has yet considered funding such a project. The risks are thought to outweigh the benefits.

As survivors of their own AI rebellion, Orion races have mixed feelings about the Geth War. Those who survived attacks by rebel AIs are often very sympathetic to the quarians' plight, and several charities have been set up to assist the Migrant Fleet. The largest and most famous of these is the Damasco Foundation, a multi-racial group dedicated to assisting survivors of AI attacks and educating the public about the dangers of AI research.

Others, especially those who did not live through the Rebellion, are more critical. The geth had displayed odd behavior for several weeks before hostilities began, while victims of Damasco AIs often had only seconds. Geth programs were almost universally installed in ships and platforms, not complexes, preventing some of the horrors faced by organics trapped in rebel AI facilities. The Geth War was also very localized, while the Damasco Rebellion stretched across empires and affected all walks of life.

The Via Damasco Rebellion remains a popular topic for drama and fiction. _The Road to Damasco_, a low-budget vid following a fictional technician and her attempts to escape the rebel AI that has gained control of her facility, was a popular hit shortly after its release. Its sequel, _The Streets of Damasco_, took a critical pounding for 'sexing-up' the protagonist, who had previously been characterized as a down-to-earth everyman. This critique did not stop the vid from becoming the highest grossing movie of the year and earning several awards for its witty dialog, engaging characters, and inventive locations. A third movie in the series, _The Ruins of Damasco_, was planned for a late-year release, but was delayed indefinitely following the Battle of Thessia and its aftermath. A new release date has not been announced.


	30. Edge (Story)

_Not really much to say here. I think this may be the most I've featured canon ME characters, so I do hope I got them right. Tali's bit was easy, since it was largely narration, so that doesn't count. This one is a little trickier. Not much else to say, though I am looking forward to finally writing the Morrigi. Bless those feathery egotists, they've been sitting on the sidelines of this story for so long I wouldn't be surprised if some people had forgotten they were even still here._

_Anyway, read, review, etc. I'm sure you know the drill by now. _

* * *

"Surprised to see you here," Wrex said with a gruff chuckle. "Thought you would have gotten off planet after that Spectre job went south."

"Too obvious. I have my own ways of blending in," Thane Krios replied smoothly, pulling up a chair opposite the large krogan. "Though I am surprised you did not take the opportunity to flee yourself. You are not the most subtle of individuals."

"Ha! Me, start running just because some Spectre wants me dead?" Wrex laughed, his voice booming through the darkened bar they sat in. The other patrons didn't even both to look. "Not a chance. Besides, I know how to go to ground when I need to."

"I assume that you were contacted by the same individual as I was?" Thane asked, folding his hands in front of him and leaning forward intently. "Convenient that an anonymous source requests to meet with both of us only a month after we failed to kill three Spectres."

"We survived trying to kill three Spectres," Wrex countered. "You're getting paranoid, drell."

"Better paranoid than dead."

"My thoughts exactly," the scarred krogan said, placing his shotgun conspicuously on the table and tapping a fist against his armor. "I'm not as stupid as I look. But if it is a trap, I'd rather face this head on than wait for some sniper to hit me from a mile away."

"I must confess to similar motivations," Thane agreed, moving his hand toward his waist. "I have taken my own precautions."

As the pair of mercenaries slowly scanned the bar for possible threats, a scantily clad Tarka female sauntered over to their table and placed a pair of glasses down with a flirty smile.

"We didn't order-" Wrex began, before realization struck him and he went for his gun. Thane, slightly faster on the draw, already had his pistol out of its holster and pointed at the Tarka's face by the time Wrex's fist closed on his gun.

They were both too late. By the time Thane's gun had cleared its holster, the female had pulled two curved knives from under her tiny skirt. With a crackle of static, she slashed one across Thane's chest and stabbed the other into the back of Wrex's neck. They instantly froze, eye snapping wide with surprise and pain.

"Don't worry. It's on the house," the Tarka quipped, dropping her bloody knives onto the table and pulling out a pair of syringes. The first she injected into Thane, the second into Wrex. Then she pulled up her own chair and leaned back, resting her feet and tail leisurely on the table.

"The paralysis will wear off in just a little while," she explained, her eyes turning green with mischievous amusement as she smiled at her captive audience. "Maab daggers may smart like a bitch, but the effect doesn't last long. Also, do you have any idea how long I had to practice that stab? Hitting the primary and secondary krogan nervous systems is not easy to do in a single strike."

True to her predictions, Wrex's hand began moving, groping sluggishly for his shotgun. The Tarka knocked it to the floor with a leisurely swipe of her tail, before wiggling one of her toes at him in admonishment.

"Ah, ah, ah…" she chided with a smile. "If you kill me, who's going to cure that poison I gave you?"

"Poi…son?" Thane slurred, forcing the words out through his locked jaw.

"A rather nasty toxin found in a rare breed of bug on the Hiver homeworld. They've breed up a resistance to it, of course. The rest of us aren't so lucky," the Tarka explained, her emerald eyes flashing. "We call it Var Ponu's Beetle because of its venom's unique properties. Notably, its extremely lethality, and the length of time it takes to affect a target. Victims have walked around without so much as a welt for days, until without warning they suddenly drop dead. It's also famous for being one of the only known poisons to have a one hundred percent fatality rate on krogan."

"You…have the antidote?" the drell asked, slowly pulling his head back into a normal position and lowering his pistol. Wrex also seemed to be fully recovered, glaring darkly at the Tarka as he clenched and unclenched his fists.

"Of course. Now that you seem to have control of yourselves again, allow me to introduce myself. My name is Sara Thok'dur. You tried to kill me last month."

"Any reason why I shouldn't finish the job now?" Wrex growled, biotics flaring around one hand.

"Besides the lethal poison swimming through your veins? I'm not stupid enough to carry the antidote around with me, you know."

"We could always force you to tell us the antidote's location," Thane pointed out, his calm tone somehow making the statement even more menacing.

"Please," the Spectre said with a laugh. "The antidote must be injected directly into the heart. There are two sets of vials, both located in different systems. One system holds the antidote, the other system has two vials of liquid surgical adhesive. It would be like injecting cement into your veins. All I have to do is give you the wrong set. Even if you somehow survive the injection, you'll never have time to get to the other system to collect the real cure."

"Fine," Wrex snapped. "What do you want?"

"I want to hire you, of course!" she said cheerfully, pulling her feet off the table and leaning forward seriously. Her eyes slid from green into a murky gray as her expression turned into a professional mask. "There's an individual on a certain Morrigi planet called Acanthus. She needs to be extracted and returned to the Citadel."

"So it's a jail break?" the krogan asked with a low chuckle. "Fun."

"Not exactly. The individual is no being held captive in the conventional sense," Sara explained. "She is an archeologist. The Confederation has hired her to help excavate ruins on the planet."

"Kidnapping then," Thane stated, his tone indicating very slight disapproval.

"Again, not exactly. I attempted to contact the individual in question two days ago, and was told that I could not be connected because the area near her dig was experiencing unusual electromagnetic interference."

"Not uncommon," the drell pointed out. "The terraforming on Morrigi worlds is largely directed toward the atmosphere, and similar storms have been known to last for months."

"Acanthus has had faster-than-light communications for longer than humanity has had steel," Sara countered, her eyes tinting slightly red. "It was one of the only known colonies not completely wiped out by the Suuligi War. I refuse to believe that they can't get a simple message through a storm."

Wrex grunted, picking up one of the drinks the Tarka had left on the table. Lifting it to eye level, he shot her a pointed glare over the rim of the small glass.

"Alright, so they're playing you. The question is, what are you going to do about it?" he asked, before downing the glass in one gulp. He winced and shook his head. "Ryncol! You've got a quad, I'll give you that."

"You are what I'm going to do about it." Sara picked up on of the other glasses, met Wrex's gaze, and tossed it back in a single motion. She then placed the empty glass upside-down on the table and smirked. "We go Acanthus and I ask one last time the nice way. If they feed me bullshit again, we hit the planet, grab the girl, and are half-way across the galaxy before the Crows even know we were there."

"The Morrigi Confederation does not acknowledge the authority of Spectres." Thane seemed slightly more at ease now, and his eyes twinkled with a soft kind of amusement. "Morrigi consider their ruins to be sacred. Not only that, but their contents are classified as government secrets. If we are caught trespassing, we will almost certainly face immediate execution for espionage and blasphemy."

"Makes it fun."

"A chance to wreck some ancient ruins and cause an interstellar incident in the process?" the krogan asked rhetorically, his scarred face splitting into a grin. "Sounds like my kind of party. Only one problem."

"Oh?" Sara asked, cocking her head quizzically.

"I know there's no such thing as Var Ponu's Beetle."

In a flash, Sara kicked over the table and rolled backward, just as Wrex hurled a biotic blast at her chest. It passed harmlessly over her head, but as she danced to her feet, she found herself staring down the barrels of a pair of guns.

"Okay, Plan B…" she said aloud, still smiling broadly. Noticing the rest of the bar had begun to stare, she waved reassuringly. "Just a business discussion, everyone. Nothing to see here."

The other patrons seemed to take her word, and began actively ignoring the group once again. Sara turned the table upright again and pulled up her chair, acting as though she didn't have two guns pointed at her the whole time.

"Well, are you going to sit down or what?" she asked, arcing a brow inquiringly. After a shared glance at his drell companion, Wrex shrugged and sat, leaving his shotgun in easy reach on the table. Thane joined a moment later, sitting down and folding his hands contemplatively.

"Yes, the poison was a fake," Sara admitted. "But I needed you not trying to shoot me for long enough that you could consider my proposal. Somehow, I thought a non-existent poison would be more effective than just stabbing you with a Maab every five seconds or so."

"A…reasonable assumption," the assassin agreed with a nod. "However, I prefer working for people who aren't extorting me."

"There's still one question," Wrex stated gruffly, his broad face splitting into an evil grin. "What are you planning on paying us?"

"Well, now that tricking you into working for free is out…" Sara sighed dramatically. "What is your usual fee?"

Thane quoted a number, and her eyes turned blue with shock.

"You two do know that the Council doesn't actually pay Spectres, right?" the Tarka asked incredulously.

"The Council doesn't need to," Wrex said, his gravelly voice radiating amusement. "Spectres skim off their own activities. Everyone knows that. My fee's the same as his."

"Should have just tried to buy the damn girl back…" Sara muttered. "Fine. Wrex, you'll get your credits. One third when you board my ship, two thirds when we all get back to the Citadel."

"Half now, half later."

"I didn't just climb out of my egg, Wrex. One third now, two thirds later. That way you I'm more valuable alive than dead."

"You've got a quad, Princess. I'll give you that much," the mercenary said with a laugh. "Fine. A third now, two later."

"As for you, Krios, I have a counter offer," she announced, turning to where the assassin still sat calmly.

"Oh?"

"I know about your diagnosis. Liir medical technology may be good for catching Kepral's Syndrome in the early stages, but even with this much advanced warning you're still looking at years of treatment and therapy. You'll never be what you were."

"I am aware of my condition, and the side-effects of conventional treatment," Thane stated, his eyes narrowing. "Based off the amount of ryncol you recently consumed, and the fact that you are still showing no indications of intoxication, I presume you are offering me cybernetic treatment. I have already considered it, and have rejected that option. However I decide to proceed, I would like to remain as I am now."

"I'm not offering to send you to some human quack who will turn you into a forklift on legs. I'm offering you this." She lifted her shirt, and as she did the rough red scales on her chest began to peel apart like flower petals. The entire front of her torso unfolded like an intricate piece of origami, shards of glittering metal as thin as paper sliding in unison in a process that was more art than anything else. Even Wrex's eyebrows widened at the display.

"Living steel organs," Sara declared, gesturing at her open chest cavity with one hand. Though there were still several examples of fleshy, obviously organic organs inside, much of her innards had been masterfully removed, replaced by carefully sculpted replicas in the same rainbow hue as the shifting plates of her torso. They even moved, shifting and pumping as though they were alive. "Look, but don't touch. This place isn't exactly sanitary, and those are my guts you're talking about."

"Feh," Wrex scoffed. "If you were going to get all that done, you should have at least gotten some cybernetic weapons out of it."

"Who says I didn't?" she replied with a mysterious smile. Without even a gesture, her chest began to close itself, and she lowered her skimpy disguise to its usual place before turning back to Thane. "They grow with you, they even repair themselves. You'd feel exactly as you do now, but without having to worry about silly things like drowning in your own lungs."

"I'll…think about it." Thane's his face was a mask as he contemplated his folded hands, his black eyes giving nothing away.

"Please do," Sara said with a final nod. "If you would prefer, there's always cash. So, gentlemen? Are you in or out?"

The two hired killers looked at her, and then shared another meaningful glance.

"Very well," Thane said with a nod. "I will assist you."

"Count me in, Princess," Wrex added with his own nod, before slamming both hands on the table to lean over a few inches from her face. "But if you don't come through on your end, no amount of shiny cybernetics in the galaxy will be able to save you from me."

Sara merely smiled, her eyes turning their usual mischievous green again.

"Then grab your gear. Our ship leaves in a hour."


	31. The Black Mirror (Codex)

_The Poarter has graciously supplied me with another guest chapter, so it's codex time again! This may be his last one for a while, so if you enjoy it, feel free to look him up and read some of his independent stories. _

* * *

_**The Black Mirror**_

_"The series _The Black Mirror_, doesn't just leap over the bar of police and criminal drama. It beats the record and lands with a triple backflip. We work with Hivers every day here at the Stars, and I can assure readers that the characters in the show are as authentic as they come. _The Black Mirror_ makes shows like _Royal Blood_ look mediocre at best and racist garbage at worst."_

-From Stars of the Citadel's review of _The Black Mirror_

_"As a Turian I generally expected to support order and the law at all times. It's these values that make up the Turian lifestyle and mindset, and one of the things that have made us strong. But that does not mean that we cannot understand the motivations behind those who think differently. _Black Mirror_ is a series that tries to subvert the viewer's perception of the law and it does so beautifully. There are as many villains among the C-Sec characters as there are among the criminals, who have many redeeming traits of their own. The situation is realistically presented as quite grey."_

-From Transparency Galactic's review of _The Black Mirror_

Since their introduction to Council space, Hivers have generally been misrepresented in media quite a bit. Many early vids portrayed Hivers as simple drones, similar to the Rachni. Though this portrayal of Hivers is no longer common, more modern vids such as _Royal Blood_ have been equally unpopular in Hiver society due to fundamental misunderstandings of their culture. These misunderstandings are typically believed to be due to three reasons.

The first reason is Hiver biology. Hivers are one of the only sentient insect-like species that the Citadel and the Orion races have encountered other than the Rachni. As such, many societies have biologically or culturally programmed emotional responses toward them. On Earth, insects are primarily considered to be pests or threats, in the case of highly venomous species. On Muur and many Tarka worlds, crustaceans and other large arthropods are staples of a healthy diet. The centuries of conflict caused by the Rachni Wars still have repercussions in Council space to this day.

The second reason is because of the nature of Hiver psychology. Hiver psychology is incredibly family orientated, with their government more closely resembling feuding clans than the stereotypical unified hive. Due to the slow speed of Hiver ships and their lack of desire to leave their families, cohabitation with Citadel races has only recently begun to occur on most major trade worlds. This has resulted in a general lack of knowledge about how Hivers perceive the world and how they behave. As a result, most assumptions about Hiver culture have been made by outsiders looking in. Most of the time these assumptions are incorrect, accidentally or deliberately.

The third and final reason is Hiver history. The conflicts caused by Hiver nesting fleets, such as the rogue fleet of Obsidian Crown that attacked Earth, has raised various parallels to the Rachni Wars. The details of the Tarka-Hiver War did not help matters with the Citadel public, despite the fact that the events of this war had largely been forgiven by many Orion Races. The fact that several Hiver clans still maintain a vendetta against humanity has only helped reinforce this sigma. Altogether this generally means that Hivers are misrepresented quite thoroughly by media. In turn this can cause plenty of negative bias for Hivers searching for work, in spite of the various positive benefits of hiring Hivers.

This stigma and misrepresentation in media and pop culture has begun to come to an end. Often credited for helping bring about this change is the popular vid serial _The Black Mirror_. Originally the brainchild of a Hiver Spectre and Executor Pallin, the idea was picked up by Morgan Bierster, an up-and-coming young director. The result was the critically acclaimed and thoroughly deconstructive police procedure and criminal drama. The cynical yet ultimately realistic drama has been funded for a second and third season.

The first season of the television series focused primarily on Hivers and the structures of their society. Particularly notable is how a great portion of the cast of the first season were Hivers, and one of the head writers for the project was also a Hiver. Although other species such as Turians, Tarka, Asari, and Quarians appear, most of the spotlight remains on the Hiver characters. Throughout the first season, the conflict shifted between two factions: that of the law and that of the criminal element.

Home to over 19.8 million sentients, the Citadel currently has over 600,000 Hivers living in its Wards. C-Sec employs over 200,000 uniformed officers to be the first line of ground defense in case of an attack and to police the five wards that make up the majority of the Citadel. Its members are often touted as among the finest members of each and every species, working towards the greater good of the multicultural Citadel.

In the serial _The Black Mirror_, C-Sec is portrayed much more ambiguously. Due to the first season's focus on Hivers, much of the drama results from how Hiver culture interacts with alien institutions, including C-Sec. Many of the Hiver officers were shown to be somewhat corrupt in various ways and degrees, once again reflecting how Hiver culture affects ethics among those in power. Throughout the show, Hiver C-Sec officers find themselves in conflict with officers of other races, as well as members of their own species, over ethics as well as the letter and spirit of the law.

Most notable are several instances of Hiver officers letting fellow clan members off quite easily while severely punishing rival clan members in similar situations, occasionally more than the law would normally permit. This is particularly obvious midway through the first season, when Kija, a Hiver C-Sec Officer, previously shown in a sympathetic light, completely blinds a Hiver criminal from a rival clan in a shocking display of police brutality. The scene, often criticized as 'unnecessarily violent' by the show's detractors, was lauded by critics for demonstrating how clan politics play such a large part in Hiver ethics.

The show also tackles the numerous problems Hiver C-Sec Officers face when policing. The Hiver C-Sec officers often face negative stigma, regardless of either stance on corruption or ethics. Even the cleanest officers are shown to have complaints filed against them for "excessive force" against female members of other species, whether or not they are innocent of said charges. Going deeper into the Hiver mindset, the show _The Black Mirror_ explores the issues of Hiver Hierarchy by showing how difficult it is for Hivers to rise in the ranks in C-Sec.

This is demonstrated with the accurate fact that the highest rank a Hiver officer has achieved is Deputy Superintendent; all others have been forced to either retire from old age or have fallen in the line of duty. The Hiver group and family mentality helps Hiver officers coordinate in the field, but prevents them from effectively directing their careers in ways that would encourage promotion.

Hivers that join C-Sec are primarily Warriors. Worker forms are often hired as clerks, cleaning staff, or secretaries, but all C-Sec officers cleared for field work are Warriors. Thus they are predominantly suited for stress and combat. While they are prized and respected for their work ethic and their physical prowess, the higher a Hiver rises in C-Sec ranks the less their duties entail actual field work and the more they must play politics. In other words, the work the Hiver Breeding Caste is breed and trained for. However because Breeders don't generally have the willingness to subject themselves to the years of labour rising for such a rank, none are currently associated with C-Sec.

This in turn causes numerous problems with Hivers in all areas of work. The difficulties they face has resulted in a high crime rate in districts with a predominately Hiver population. In some cases the homicide rate is as high as 60 per 100,000 sentients in some districts. Their unfortunate failure to actually make a difference in a system that is certainly alien to them is a harsh, brutal, and cynical message. Ultimately this raises numerous problems which in turn cause the Hiver criminal element both in the series and in real life.

The Hiver criminals shown in _The Black Mirror_ were regarded by many critics as among the most complex shown on recent television. To a member of another race not familiar with Hiver culture, the show's criminal element seems to be more of a civil organization than that most other organized crime families. The "Blood Swords", a fictional clan of politically-ostracized Hivers numbering in the hundreds, have fallen under hard times for quite a while, forcing the clan to supplement itself through crime.

The plot of the show revolves around the dynamics of the Hiver Workers, Warrior, and Breeding caste. A major theme of the show is the isolation the community-oriented Hivers face, both from aliens and from their own society. In _The Black Mirror_ the Blood Swords' Prince and Princess are united by feelings of romance. However this goes against normal Hiver Breeding caste values, which place importance on politics and genetics.

Because the Hiver Prince, Chak Kirzaki, went against political pressure and formed a union with Princess Kirct Zieki, the clan suffers quite dearly. The mutual aid that would generally be available from other clans is non-existent, the living conditions are poor by Hiver standards and the sheer racism and bigotry the clan faces is extreme. As a result the clan now has to support itself through organized crime in order to properly make ends meet.

What's particularly notable is how _The Black Mirror_ goes out of the way to show how why Princes do not normally marry for love, and why the practice is considered eccentric at best among Hivers. Chak's own genetics are shown to be somewhat mediocre, which in turn causes slow growth in the clan, allowing other Hiver gangs to muscle in far more easily.

Also notable is how the powerful loyalty of the Hivers to their parents plays an enormous part in the story. All captured Hiver criminals in the show prefer to commit suicide then actually betray their parents, and special measures have to be put in place to prevent this from repeatedly occurring. This leads to various issues for C-Sec because there is no inside informants and very little forensic evidence. In turn this causes the C-Sec officers investigating the Blood Swords to become frustrated and more aggressive over the course of the season. The Blood Swords organization is also shown to be somewhat sympathetic in their criminal activities by attempting to limit themselves to only what they need, both for moral and pragmatic reasons. Nevertheless the show never glosses over the fact that the Blood Swords are criminals and that their various activities, no matter how limited, are harmful to others.

In keeping with the show's sympathetic portrayal of the criminal underworld, Chak's eventual death is treated as tragic instead of triumphant. The bittersweet ending scene, showing members of the Blood Swords looking on mournfully as the body of their father is destroyed by Hiver C-Sec officers to prevent possible resurrection, is filmed as heartbreaking as possible. According to the writers, the scene was an attempt to demonstrate how loved and cherished their father was to members of the Blood Swords, despite his obvious flaws.

Altogether the first season of _The Black Mirror_ reached critical and financial acclaim for exploring the life of Hivers both with and against the law. Criminals and C-Sec officers are considered to be equally sympathetic and flawed, and the show is very critical of the current economic and justice system. Director Morgan Bierster explained that he wanted to demonstrate the fact that everyone has a reason for doing what they do.

_"It's so easy to just make the lawful good and the chaotic evil. But why do people chose chaos? _The Black Mirror_ asks its viewers this quite a bit and only they can answer that question themselves."_

Though Executor Pallin's partner could not be located for comment, the Executor himself has expressed disappointment with what Bierster eventually decided to do with their idea.

_"The purpose of our original idea was to show the conflicts created by so many different cultures attempting to find a unified balance in such a small area, and how hard officers of all races and values must work to safeguard our citizens. But Bierster's interpretation of C-Sec shows us only at our worst, while his romantic portrayal of 'sympathetic' criminals only provides artificial justification for the real monsters that stalk our station."_

Despite these statements, several anonymous individuals claiming to be both Hiver and non-Hiver C-Sec officers have commented on public forums about the show. These sources claim that the show's portrayal is chillingly accurate about the bureaucratic system C-Sec officers face on the Citadel, and that many of the situations faced in the show could and have actually happened. The accuracy and validity of these comments, of course, cannot be verified.

_The Black Mirror_ second season is currently in production and the first episode is scheduled for release in two weeks. It has been confirmed that the second season is planned to focus on Tarka characters and culture. The planned third season is still in the scripting stages, but current leaks suggest that it will focus on Turian culture. The teaser for the show's second season was recently released, featuring the surviving characters from the first season facing new challenges, while saying the show's signature tag line:

_"Nothing has changed."_


	32. Duo (Story)

_So I guess I like the Tali/Garrus plot line, since I keep writing such larger chapters for it. Well, no fear, since Sara's little adventure is about to get more exciting, which should result in a nice long chapter in just a little bit. Sorry for the delay, but I absolutely hated my first draft for this chapter. I'm still not fully convinced that I got Tali and Garrus correctly, but at some point you just have to shrug and go "Eh, good enough."_

_Read, review, etc. As always, enjoy, and let me know if anything rubs you the wrong way, so I go fix any plot holes._

"I said the Emporium is off limits," the burly krogan growled. "Beat it, suit rat."

Spotting the trouble ahead, Garrus unfolded his assault rifle and strolled casually toward the Presidium Trade Emporium. The quarian girl was already there, arguing with a cluster of Blood Pack mercenaries that seemed to have the entire Emporium sealed off.

"Is there a problem here?" he asked in his best 'helpful police officer' voice, even as he subtly scanned the area with his visor. Two krogan, four unChanged Tarka males. His visor's feed subtly informed him that the Tarka were carrying standard Ks'Sartha Ullaru Repeaters, a cheap Tarka knockoff of the Banshee assault rifle. But he winced when he saw that both krogan were carrying Woomera Ballistics Scatterguns. The amount of lead those things could spit out was obscene. Good thing the area was already deserted, or civilian casualties could be a real problem.

"There won't be if this bitch will take a hint and get lost!" one of the krogan snapped, pointing at the girl, who bristled in indignation. Garrus noticed how her hand was starting to drift near the handle of her flamer, and approved inwardly. He had argued long and hard against including the quarian in field work, but at least she knew enough to read the situation.

"The Trade Emporium is public property," the detective responded smoothly. "She can go in if she wants."

"That's not what my contract says," the krogan snapped. "My client has rented the Emporium for a private gathering. Nobody goes in. Period. And it's already been cleared with C-Sec, _Detective_. So do us both a favor and get this damned suit rat out of my face, before I smash her face plate in and watch her cough herself to death."

"Citizen, I feel it is my duty to inform you that, since your life has been publicly threatened by several armed individuals, you are well within your rights to respond with deadly force," Garrus stated, his casual tone causing the Blood Pack members to shift in confusion. The quarian seemed to grasp his meaning immediately, however, and deployed a glowing set of tech armor. "As a C-Sec officer, it is naturally my duty to intervene in such a situation and help defend you from your attackers."

The detective could actually see the moment it finally clicked for the stupid krogan. Unfortunately, that was also the moment Garrus' first bullet went through his eye. The krogan fell in a spray of blood, and the Garrus dove for cover behind the corner of a nearby wall. The quarian was doing the same on the opposite side of the Emporium, rolling behind a stack of crates and pulling out her flamer.

With a roar of gunfire the mercenaries opened up, and the air was suddenly filled with flying bullets. Scatterguns fired smaller shells than normal human shotguns did, but they made up for it by firing three times as fast. The Tarka also seemed to be getting in on the bullet fever, holding down their triggers in a way that would make their rifles overheat in seconds.

_They plan to close into melee combat while you are pinned down, Detective._

The voice simply appeared in his mind, the way Liir mental communication always did. He would have shivered, had a bullet not pinged off the wall next to him and reminded him that he had other problems at the moment.

_They are armed with omni-bayonets. You and Tali'Zorah are unlikely to survive a close engagement. However, Tali'Zorah has a plan. Please be ready to take advantage of the confusion._

"I have no idea what the hell you are talking about!" Garrus shouted, leaning further into cover as a scattergun burst crashed against his hiding place and made his shields flicker. "What is she-"

"Fly, Chikktika!" the quarian's voice called from the other end of the Emporium, and he saw a narrow, fined shape shoot into the air. It unfolded, and the turian immediately recognized it from the xenotechnology briefings he had been given back in the military.

"Where the hell did she get a Morrigi attack drone?" he wondered aloud, just before the drone started shooting. Piercing laser blasts began lancing down from on high, scorching against the armor of several mercenaries and causing them to scream in pain.

They turned to shoot at the drone, but it darted away, leaving them shooting wildly into the air. The drone danced through the air like a mote of dust on the wind, spinning and twirling in arcane patterns, rocketing away at high speeds only to stop instantly and spin to spit death at its foes below.

The krogan lumbered forward, emptying its scattergun into the air, and this time the drone wasn't quite quick enough. The storm of lead caught it, causing its shields to flare and sending it careening through the air.

"Bring it down!" he bellowed, and as his Tarka minions turned their full attention to the drone, Garrus saw his chance. So did the quarian, apparently. The girl burst out of her cover and leveled her flamer at the gathered Blood Pack members, her glowing eyes narrowed viciously.

With a WHOOSH, the entire Emporium was suddenly covered in flames. The mercenaries began screaming and flailing, trying to get out of the lethal spray as their flesh began to sizzle. The drone immediately used this reprieve to stabilize itself, spinning to fire a beam through the head of a writhing Tarka.

Peaking around the corner, Garrus quickly highlighted his targets with his visor, thumbing a button on the side of his rifle once he had finished. Just as the krogan began to draw a bead on the exposed quarian, completely ignoring the fact that half of his face was on fire , the detective leaned out of cover and snapped off a half dozen quick shots.

The entire mercenary group dropped like their strings had been cut, a single round slicing neatly through each of their shields to blow their heads to pulp. Only the krogan was still moving, his limbs twitching slightly as his secondary organs began to take over. The quarian was apparently familiar with this racial quirk and doused him with another blast of fire, this time scorching him down to the bone. He stopped twitching.

"That's for calling me a suit rat," she hissed as she passed the burning corpse. With a gesture, she summoned her drone back to her, letting it circle her head like an excited little bird. "Oh, Chikktika, did those nasty men damage you? Don't worry, we'll get you fixed good as new when we get back to the embassy."

"Where did you find that?" Garrus asked, holstering his weapon and approaching the girl. She jumped lightly, as if she had forgotten he was there. "I didn't think someone like you could afford what the Morrigi charge for even an older drone model like that one."

"Oh, I f-found it," she explained sheepishly, gesturing again. The drone chirped, folding itself neatly and attaching itself to her back. He noticed that besides her flamer and drone, she also carried a shotgun clipped to her waist. Noticing Garrus' searching glance, she began stammering even worse. "N-no, I r-r-really did find it! It was in a junk heap! I promise I didn't steal it! Oh Kheela, I'm really messing this up. You aren't going to try and arrest me, are you?"

"Somehow, you don't strike me as the criminal mastermind type," the detective teased. "Though I should call this in, unless we want the rest of C-Sec all over us. They might not be as understanding."

"Oh, right!" she exclaimed, before lowering her gaze to the ground. "I'll just go ahead and let you do that, then."

Flexing his mandibles in amusement over the girl's strange behavior, Garrus triggered his communicator.

"C-Sec Dispatch," said a calm female voice on the other end of the line. "Detective Vakarian, is that you?"

"You always see through me, Narena," he replied, attempting to keep is tone casual.

"I just got a report of an open-air firefight on the Presidium. Can I assume that was you?"

"That was me. The situation's under control now. Some Blood Pack goons decided to pick on a quarian for fun, and I stepped in. Things went downhill from there. Shots fired, and I've got a couple bodies. But all hostiles are down, and I've got the scene secured."

"Well, I've got two patrol cars headed to your position," she stated in an amused tone. "Just sit tight, they'll be there in just a few minutes."

"Actually, the quarian's pretty shaken up. She's completely hysterical. Could you pull them back for fifteen minutes or so? I need some time to get her calm enough for an official statement."

"Garrus, you know how the Executor feels about bending the rules. People are dead! You can't expect me to send officers on a wild goose chase for you just because you asked."

"I'm pretty sure I just did," he pointed out, in a voice he really hoped was roguishly charming. "Come on, Narena. I just need a few minutes alone with her. Please? For me?"

"…fine, but you better not be trying to put the moves on her," she said with a heavy sigh.

"Narena, you've seen me try to pick up women," Garrus reminded in a knowing tone. "I think we both remember how that usually turns out."

"Point. Alright, I'm sending your backup on a detour to avoid 'congested airspace."

"Thanks. You're a life saver."

"Damn right," she pronounced in a satisfied tone. "You owe me, Vakarian!"

"Don't I know it," the detective muttered as he closed the connection. He turned back to the Emporium, to find the quarian glaring at him from the scorched pavement.

"I'm 'completely hysterical'?" she asked indignantly, hands on her hips. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

"It was a cover story!" he exclaimed. "We still need to get to the source of the signal. I doubt you'd like to try it with all of C-Sec standing over your shoulder!"

"Oh," the girl answered, looking quite abashed. She folded her hands behind her back and twisted awkwardly. "That…does make sense. Sorry."

"Thank you." Garrus quickly scanned the area, searching for the terminal that had received the signal. "None of the computers out here are strong enough to be what we're looking for. It must be in the back."

"Right!" she agreed, just a little too quickly. As they walked toward the back, she shot a sheepish glance at him, but then quickly looked away. "Um…"

"Yes?"

"Are all turians good shots like that? I've never really seen a turian shoot before now, and you hit every one of those guys right in the head. I don't even think Prince Stone Mind's guards could have done something like that. Is it because you all have to join the military, or…"

"As much as I would like to take all the credit, the real glory goes to this thing," Garrus answered, gesturing back at his assault rifle. "It's the first personal weapon the Turian military has ordered in over a century that uses chambered ammunition instead of heat sinks, and for good reason."

He unstrapped one of the bulky clips attached to his belt and tossed it to her. She fumbled it once before catching it with both hands. As soon as she had a good grip on it, though, he saw her eyes narrow at once.

"There are thrusters in the rear of these rounds," she commented instantly. "It looks like the rear blows off for stabilizer fins as well. Are these seeking rounds?"

"Yep," the detective agreed, triggering the rear door of the Emporium with a casual wave. "We copied the idea off the new rifles SolForce is giving their Brawlers. Just select where you want the bullet to go in your HUD and the computer does the rest. Standard issue for C-Sec these days. I always thought it was cheating, but it does cut down on officers accidentally shooting someone in the next room over."

"That's a shield-breaker mod too," the quarian pointed out, examining the tip of the rounds. "I see the proton core, but you've added something to the casing too. The Migrant Fleet uses similar rounds against geth ships, based off the Hiver shield-breaker design."

"Yeah, this is actually just a miniaturized version of-"

"I have been waiting for you," a metallic voice interrupted, cutting off their conversation. "As she predicted, the mercenaries were not enough."

"…not what I was expecting," Garrus said, stopping in his tracks.

A large bank of computers stood against the far wall, but the interface icon had warped and changed. Instead of its usual circle design, a holographic mask hovered in mid-air, scowling at them. The mask looked like a stylized salarian face, hollow inside but with glowing eyes and crisscrossed with shining circuits.

"You are already too late," the face announced. "Even as we speak, I am-"

"Shut up," the girl snapped, dropping the clip to the ground and jamming her omni-tool against the glowing face. It immediately broke into static as her tool began spinning wildly, icons flashing into life and vanishing against just as fast.

"What are you doing?" Garrus asked, walking up behind her.

"It's trying to purge itself!" she explained through gritted teeth. "We need that data, so I'm stopping it!"

"iT is USeLEsS!" the AI howled, it's face and voice twisted and distorted. "TheRe iS a BoMB bEloW mY COrE. YoU sHaLL DiE wITh mE, CaRBonITeS!"

"You heard the thing, Detective!" the girl snapped. "Disarm that bomb!"

"I'm a sniper! Do I look like I had bomb squad training?" he exclaimed, waving his had in the air. "You're the tech specialist, you disarm it!"

"Fine!" Her glowing eyes narrowed, though she was not taking her attention away from her flashing omnitool as her fingers danced through the air. "I'll do it! And YOU can try to pull information from the brain of the hostile AI before it deletes itself or comes up with a new way to kill us both!"

"No, I'd rather have the bomb, thanks,," Garrus replied quickly, sliding to his knees to tear off the floor panel near the computer's base. "Damn! He wasn't kidding about taking us with him!"

"How bad?"

"Bad enough to level the whole Emporium and do some serious damage to everything else around here," he replied. "Looks like some kind of plasma weapon."

"At least it's not fusion." The quarian winced as a circuit blew on the computer, sending sparks flying at her face, but she never stopped focusing on her task. "Can you disarm it?"

"We're about to find out. The trigger mechanism looks hackable," Garrus stated, pulling up his omnitool and beginning to dive through the layers of electronic security around the bomb. He wasn't a specialist, and definitely didn't have bomb training, but he knew how to make an improvised explosive and several other nasty booby traps besides. Disarming one couldn't be that much harder.

Without warning, the girl beside him began to convulse, limbs twisted in agony. She appeared to be trying to power through the pain, but her movements were obviously contorted and jerky.

"What's wrong?" he asked, continuing to try and thread his way past the bombs defenses even as he divided his attention to her plight. "Are you hit?"

"Aaagh!" she screamed, even as she fumbled a twitching hand along the side of her omnitool, triggering several glowing icons. The pain seemed to subside, and she straightened again. "The AI went after my suit's systems. I was able to lock off critical systems like the seals and exoskeleton, but it found my Nerve Stim program before I could block it. I've got it under control now."

"Ouch," he winced in sympathy, before slamming a hand onto the floor in frustration. "Damn it! The security is too good. I can't hack the bomb."

"I have omni-gel!" she offered, unclipping a vial from the one of the harnesses on her suit and tossing it to him.

"So do I," the detective said quickly, but still palmed the vial out of the air by reflex. "But this is one of the newer model systems. Omni-gel proof. I'm going to have to defuse it manually."

"I thought you said you couldn't do that!"

"I said I wasn't trained for it." He pulled off a panel on the side of the bomb, exposing several glowing circuits and tubes. "I never said I couldn't do it."

"If you kill us, I will never forgive you," she snapped before turning all her attention toward the AI again.

"This circuitry is cutting edge, no way I'm going to be able slice into that without triggering the bomb," Garrus muttered quickly as his eyes darted over the bomb, taking in every last detail. "Have to go for the conduits… Hey! Left or right?"

"Left or right?" she asked, causing her to glance at him in confusion before renewing her attack on the computer. "What do you mean?"

"There are two conduits on the bomb. One is high pressure, one is low pressure. If I damage the seal on the low pressure conduit, the plasma will dump into that conduit and there won't be enough for a detonation. If I break the high pressure seal, the pressure will force plasma into this room, and we get flash fried. I can't tell the difference with the equipment I have, so left or right?"

"Quit squirming, you bosh'tet!" the girl cursed at the static-filled face of the AI, before addressing Garrus again. "Um…most life forms are right handed, but plasma weapons were first used by the Tarka, and Tarka value cleverness in design, so it would be left. But it's not a Tarka bomb, so-"

"Today, please! We've got five seconds!"

"Right! No, left! Definitely left!"

"Good enough for me." Gritting his teeth, he slammed an armored fist against where the left conduit's seal should be. When nothing happened, he did it again, harder. This time, there was a crunch and a loud hiss. After a second of waiting where his face failed to be vaporized by leaking plasma, he sagged in relief.

"Got it!" the quarian crowed in triumph, dismissing her omni-tool in satisfaction. "Just in time!"

"dOmInae…" the fading voice of the AI slurred, just before its mask winked out, leaving only the standard interface icon behind.

"If you don't mind, I'm just going to lay on the floor for a while," the detective stated, slumping down to the floor in relief. "Carry on."

"You did it?" she asked, leaning over him. "You stopped the bomb?"

"If I didn't, this is a very shitty kind of heaven," he moaned, covering his eye with one hand. "I was hoping for a bar."

The girl chuckled, a sound that Garrus' foggy brain admitted was actually kind of nice, and slid down a nearby wall to go over the data she had obtained. Silence reigned for a second, before she let out a started exclamation.

"But…This is-" she stammered, paging through the data even faster. "This can't be right. It says AI wasn't the geth infiltrator. Based off this data, it was just a financial program that went out of control."

"Was it working with the geth?" the detective asked, brushing his rattled nerves aside to tackle this new problem.

"Yes, but not like that," she explained. "There is an infiltrator, the memories I pulled are clear on that. But it was already here, before this AI ever came online. Its logs say that she contacted him, not the other way around."

"She? Him? I thought geth didn't have genders."

"The logs clearly indicate genders," she agreed with a dismayed shake of her head. "I think it has something to do with Damasco. Geth were bad enough before. This 'pretending to be people' thing is just creepy."

"So the real infiltrator is still out there?"

"YES. I AM," a booming voice announced through both of their communicators at once. "AND YOUR INVESTIGATION HAS GONE FAR ENOUGH."

"Fire suppression system active," a smooth VI voice announced as the exit suddenly slammed shut and red warning lights began flashing. "Danger. Life signs detected inside suppression area. Cancelling-cancel overridden. Beginning fire suppression. Have a nice day."

"Shit!" Garrus cursed, his helmet automatically snapping up over the back of his head and beginning to unfold over his face. No sooner had the helmet pressurized than freezing containment foam began pouring from hidden nozzles in the wall, sticking one of his feet to the floor.

"What do we do?" the quarian asked, staggering back in surprise and narrowly avoiding a blast that would have crystalized her to the wall.

"You hack the system," he ordered, pulling out his assault rifle and highlighting two of the nozzles. The bullets streaked unerringly through the tiny slits, smashing them instantly. "I buy you time."

"Got it!" She pulled out her omni-tool again and began pouring over it, completely tuning out the jets filling the room with gray crystals and choking dust. The infiltrator was obviously still watching, because the nozzles turned as one, leaving crackling trails in their path as they tried to freeze her where she stood.

Time seemed to slow as Garrus's eyes flicked toward each of the nozzles in turn, highlighting them as targets. The openings for the fire suppression system were only a few centimeters across. Even with seeker bullets and at close range, they were incredibly small targets to try and hit with a burst. But he didn't have enough time to try anything else.

Thumbing the activation button again, he spun as much as his immobile foot would allow, firing as he went. The bullets sailed perfectly into the walls, crushing a half-dozen nozzles in a single second. The creeping foam stopped just inches short of the quarian, who didn't even look up.

As his clip clicked empty, the detective moved to grab a replacement, and was caught from behind by a spray that chilled him even through his armor. Though he had destroyed the nearest suppression nozzles, several further away had begun tracing him. His gun was useless, frozen straight to his arm that now hung like a dead weight.

Backing away, he pulled out his pistol with his left hand and fired several shots, cutting off another stream. Before he could correct his aim, a second nozzle hit him, sticking him to a wall. As the freezing spray continued, covering his legs and working its way up his body, Garrus came to a horrifying realization.

Neither his police armor nor the quarian's pressure suit was equipped for operation in a vacuum. They could filter the air to make it breathable, but didn't have any internal supply. If the fire suppression system hit the vents in their suits they would clog instantly, smothering their users in seconds.

He franticly began struggling, trying to break an arm free, but it was stuck fast. Now that he was pinned down, the other nozzles were focusing their attention on the girl, who was still focusing all her attention on her omni-tool. Even as her feet froze to the floor and the crystals began creeping up her legs, she never stopped working.

Just before the stream began to splash against his neck, the lights turned off. The slits in the walls closed seamlessly, as though they'd never been there at all.

"Fire suppression canceled," the female voice announced. "We apologize for any inconvenience."

"Can the infiltrator hack it again?" Garrus asked, glancing down to see the damage. He was entombed, with a thick coating of crystals over his legs and arms, as well as much of his chest. Only his head was free.

"No," the quarian replied. She was also well encased, the crystals covering her all the way up to her navel. "I cut the system's connection to the network after I canceled the fire suppression. I canceled the surveillance systems as well. We're safe."

"That was some smooth work," he congratulated. "On the AI earlier and on the fire system now."

"You did pretty well too, with the shooting and the whole stopping-us-from-being-blown-to-bits thing," she admitted, and started ringing her hands nervously again. "…sorry if I was a bit rude to you, earlier. I've never really done anything like this before."

"Don't worry about it. I wasn't exactly on my best behavior either," he admitted in a wry tone. "How about we start over again. I'm Garrus Vakarian, C-Sec Detective."

"Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. Hiver Diplomatic Consultant."

"Pleased to meet you, Tali."

"Same here," Tali agreed happily. Then she looked down at the crystals holding her in place. "Um, Garrus, how do we get out of these?"

"It will evaporate in a few hours. I suppose we could shoot our way out, but unless you've got something more precise than that shotgun, I wouldn't recommend it. The crystals are almost heat-proof, so lasers and flames won't really help."

"Are we stuck here then?"

"Well, C-Sec should be along in a few minutes, and they can probably chip us out. I wouldn't worry about it, Tali."

"Oh, okay."

The two friends sat quietly, frozen in the empty room as tiny fire suppression crystals drifted through the air around them.

"So…" Garrus began awkwardly, trying to fill the silence. "You have a Nerve Stim program installed?"

"I also have a shotgun."

"Shutting up now."


	33. The Black List (Codex)

_I had rather hoped I was done with recycling stuff from Sword of the Stars canon, but it occurred to me that I still haven't given those of you unfamiliar with SotS the rundown on the many, many hazards of living in the Orion Arm. Seems like you can't leave your home system some days without something trying to kill you. We touched on a few way back in the day when Liara learned the truth about the Reapers, but now we get to see them in greater detail. _

_SotS lore junkies probably know most of this, but you might want to skim anyway, just to see what the Council races make these monsters. And I do know that some of the Menaces aren't on here, but this is the canonical Black List for this period in history. Even the Orion races haven't seen everything the galaxy has to throw at them yet..._

* * *

**The Black List**

The legendary Black List is a database created by the SolForce Intelligence Corp, containing all unidentified ships and phenomena encountered by humanity. Most entries are broad categories, rather than exclusive items. For example, Black 7 included all Tarka ship types until their origins were revealed, rather than adding a new item for each new ship encountered. In order to qualify for the Black List, the phenomena must clearly demonstrate that it is the agency of an unknown intelligence. This eliminates natural stellar occurrences and other unexplained accidents from consideration.

The Black List has its origins in aftermath of Princess Obsidian Crown's disastrous attack on Earth. The bodies recovered from Hiver ships all shared the same black markings as their mother, so the records regarding them were called the Black List. The name remained even after more phenomena and ships were discovered and added to the list. Objects on the Black List are not removed or categorized, even after their nature and origins have been explained.

The Hiver Imperium, Tarkasian Empire, Salarian Union, Turian Hierarchy, and Council Special Tactics and Reconnaissance Office maintain their own databases of unexplained phenomena, similar to the Black List. The Morrigi Confederation, Liir, and Asari Republics have less formal catalogs, usually limited to historical legends or word-of-mouth stories about ghost ships and interstellar monsters.

The Black List is publicly available and currently contains twenty unique entries. Rumors persist that several other objects are also on the Black List, but are too classified for public release. SIC has officially denied any such claims and no evidence has surfaced to the contrary.

**Black 1 **is the recovered body of a Hiver Worker, from Obsidian Crown's rogue nesting fleet.

**Black 2 **is the recovered body of a Hiver Warrior, from Obsidian Crown's rogue nesting fleet.

**Black 3** is the recovered body of Prince Midnight Lance, from Obsidian Crown's rogue nesting fleet.

**Black 4 **is a small robotic mining drone with VI intelligence. These drones typically nest in asteroid fields, swarming out in large numbers to attack passing ships with plasma ejected from their engines. Slightly larger 'warrior' forms have also been sighted. Eventually named Silicoids, Tarkasians gave them a more straightforward name: the Swarm. Silicoids are not found outside the Orion Arm, and are generally treated as more of an annoyance than a threat.

**Black 5** is a frigate-sized robotic construction ship. These ships launch from Silicoid nests, seeking out asteroid fields in nearby systems to build new nests. Called Silicoid Queens, they often bring a contingent of worker and warrior drones for protection as they travel. Once created Queens remain inside their nests unless the nest is about to be destroyed, when they will abandon it in an attempt to flee the system. The possiblity of Queens for exponential growth is the primary reason that Silicoid nests are destroyed on sight by all Orion races.

**Black 6 **is a cruiser-sized ship in the shape of an octahedron. These vessels, often called Motherships, are capable of limited self-replication, spontaneously constructing smaller versions of themselves called 'Collectors'. These Collectors are armed with two powerful beams that disintegrates matter on contact, and will instantly target any artificial structures available before moving on to deposits of rich minerals. Because of their ability for replication they are commonly known as Von Neumanns, after the human theorist who first proposed the idea of self-replicating machines. Von Neumann beam weapons are thought to have a limited tractor capability, scooping up disintegrated matter to return it to the Mothership for processing. Motherships do not engage in combat themselves unless they are directly threatened. Analysis of Von Neumann wreckage has concluded that they are unmanned and their behavior suggests highly sophisticated VI control. Further analysis also indicates that they were originally intended as exploration vessels, as their wreckage often contains massive amounts of data about the surrounding region of space. Von Neumann vessels are not found outside the Orion Arm and are not designed for combat, presenting little threat to even a patrol fleet.

**Black 7** is the Tarka.

**Black 8** is the Liir.

**Black 9 **is a section of a derelict vessel, origins unknown. These derelicts often have active weapons that will lash out at any passing ships, and are considered to be very deadly to civilian ships. The advanced technology used in their construction is highly sought after by the scientific community. Several years ago, a joint effort between the Tarkasian Empire, SolForce, and the Citadel Council was organized to piece together the shattered remains of several derelicts in an attempt to discover their original nature. Named Project Antiquarian, it was a major symbol of galactic cooperation throughout Council Space. Project Antiquarian was successful in partially reconstructing the forward section of a massive, super-dreadnought. Speculation about the nature of this vessel and of others like it remains rampant, with theories ranging from Prothean super-ships to mysterious 'Reaper' vessels supposedly responsible for the Prothean extinction. Alien derelicts are most common in the Orion Arm, but several notable examples have been found in Council Space and the Terminus Systems.

**Black 10 **is an abandoned asteroid fortress equipped with dreadnought level firepower. Known as asteroid monitors, their creators and purposes are a mystery. Research has shown that the VIs controlling asteroid monitors can be subverted and controlled, allowing them to be used as powerful system defenses. Following the example of these fortresses, the Turian Hierarchy, Tarkasian Empire, and Morrigi Confederation all have been known to construct their own asteroid monitors for defense. Abandoned asteroid monitors have not been found outside the Orion Arm.

**Black 11** was an unknown super dreadnought-class vessel that single-handedly defeated an entire SolForce Task Force group before vanishing into dark space. It has earned the unsettling name of Puppet Master for its unique ability to subvert control of an entire ship through a beam weapon of unknown origins. The eventual fate of ships captured this way is unknown. Though its current location is a mystery, analysis of its energy signature suggests that the Puppet Master may not originate from this universe, and may not even fully exist in our dimension. Due to unusual nature of Black 11 and the lack of information about it, many speculate that it doesn't actually exist, and is a hoax constructed by SolForce to cover up something more sinister. The Puppet Master's existence and possible involvement in the disappearance of the SFS Leviathan is a popular topic of debate.

**Black 12** was as super dreadnought-class ship known as the System Killer. VI controlled and equipped with powerful beam and missile weaponry, the System Killer is thought to have been created many millennia ago as a weapon of mass destruction in a forgotten interstellar war. The System Killer earns its name from its spinal cannon: a beam weapon of such frightening power that it can destroy a star. The System Killer also uses the resulting energy to repair itself before moving on to another system. In a cunning plan, an alliance of Tarka, SolForce, and Hiver ships once used the System Killer's unique properties to stabilize the dying star of _Tcho'to'pre_, the Hiver homeworld, at the end of the Hiver War. This cooperation between warring factions and the many lives lost trying to save what were at the time mortal enemies are thought to have paved the way for the Hiver Armistice that formally ended the Hiver War.

**Black 13** was originally known as the Rippers or Slavers, until they were eventually revealed as Zuul raiding fleets.

**Black 14** is a large planetary hanger that launches a wing of drone equipped with tractor beams at any ships in orbit. These drones will snag nearby ships and attempt to drag them into the atmosphere, where atmospheric friction will destroy them. This trap was eventually revealed as an ancient Morrigi colony defense mechanism, and gained the name Colony Trap. Morrigi refer to it as a Colony Trickster and still use it in key systems to discourage pirates.

**Black 15** was eventually revealed as a Tholos tomb, an orbiting burial chamber maintained as a sacred repository of wealth and knowledge by Morrigi males. Following the creation of the Morrigi Confederation, the looting of Tholos tombs was declared illegal under Council law and violators face immediate extradition to the Confederation for their crimes.

**Black 16 **is a variant of the Von Neumann Mothership known as the Von Neumann Berserker. A cruiser-sized vessel, Berserkers split into smaller frigate-sized ships, each with various unique properties and weapons. Berserkers are a deadly threat and can even pose a danger to unprepared military fleets. This danger is mitigated by the fact that Berserkers only appear at systems where Von Neumann Motherships have been destroyed. To avoid conflict with Berserkers, most Orion races simply destroy Von Neumann Collectors and leave the Motherships unharmed. As Von Neumanns are not active outside the Orion Arm, no Berserkers have been sighted in Council Space.

**Black 17** was a large metallic sphere that has been classified as a super-dreadnought vessel. It travels to worlds seemingly at random, destroying all signs of life and then strip mining the planet. Though the core vessel is armed with powerful beam weapons, the ship's most defining feature is the hundreds of small cone-shaped drones it launches. These drones attack in endless waves and are equipped with their own, much weaker beam weapons. Because of the way they strip resources from planets and come in huge swarms, they became known as Locust, after a similar swarming insect on Earth. No human vessel has survived an encounter with the Locust Hiveship, and its current location is unknown.

**Black 18 **is a huge energy field that appears from Nodespace. This field immediately seeks out all vessels in the immediate vicinity and engulfs them, overloading electrical systems and causing massive cascade failures in the nervous systems of any crew inside. Death is painful and swift. Though they are comprised of pure energy, the fields act with obvious intelligence. Because all kinetic weapons pass through them without causing damage, they were given the name Specters. Though originally limited to the Orion Arm, they have begun appearing in Council space, especially near high traffic human colonies. For this reason, it is believed that Specters are drawn to areas with heavy Node traffic.

**Black 19 **is a propaganda vessel, presumably of Zuul origins. The construction is similar, though the technology used is much more advanced than that of any other reported Zuul vessel. Calling itself the Herald, it appeared without warning and attacked a trade world in Council space. It is equipped with two destroyer-class battleriders, and emits a constant broadcast when it sights other ships or worlds. This broadcast, containing meaningless ramblings about future threats and destruction, is also a vector for a powerful psychic attack that causes despair and insanity in its victims. After attacking two more worlds near the border of the Orion Arm, the Herald was destroyed over the Hiver colony of Chel'ktaz by a combined SolForce, Hiver, and Turian fleet. How the Herald escaped the Zuul blockade is unknown, and a Spectre investigation is ongoing.

**Black 20** is the theoretical entity that seized the SFS Leviathan from the Argos Naval Yard and managed to remove it from the system without a trace. No detailed images of this entity exist, and a popular movement suggests that there is no Black 20. They claim Black 20 is merely a front to allow SolForce to use the SFS Leviathan against Council races with deniability. Others theorize that Black 20 is really Black 11, citing Black 11's ability to control its victims and the bizarre actions of the Leviathan during the Battle of Thessia.

The sheer number of anomalous entities present in the Orion Arm compared the rest of Council space has been a topic of intense scientific inquiry for many years. The most popular theory is that such dangers are present throughout the galaxy, and the limited range of the Mass Effect drive has prevented Council races from encountering most of them. Others believe that the Protheans wiped out many malicious hazards as they were settling the galaxy, which is why they are more common in areas with few Relays. Both theories have their flaws, but scientists and historians remain hopeful that continued exploration with the more long-ranged Orion drives, as well as increased study of these anomalous entities and their origins, may finally be able to provide an answer to this mystery.


	34. Revelation (Story)

_And now, the moment some of you have been waiting a very long time for. This was actually one of the most-asked questions in my reviews, so I'm happy to finally be able to give you your answer. Hopefully it lives up to your expectations. _

_This chapter is going to have a lot more meaning for those of you who are familiar with Sword of the Stars lore. For those of you who are coming straight from Mass Effect and are avoiding spoilers like good little readers, fear not! All will be explained in the next Codex! And at least you got to see Saren do a bit of cacklingly evil mustache twirling! Yeah, he's...not all there._

_I'm sure there will be lots of questions, so feel free to review and ask. Some of it will be covered in the codex, but some details are probably going to fall through the cracks. So please enjoy, and I'll see you soon! _

* * *

Saren's brow furrowed as he regarded the large ring-shaped device in front of him.

"Will it work?" he asked suspiciously.

"Well, it's never been tested, of course," answered the wiry Salarian scientist beside him. Saren hadn't bothered to ask his name. One scientist was the same as any other. "But based off what we know about Node Pathing and the wrecks we salvaged during the Human/Turian War, it should function."

"The last person who said that opened a Node Line into a gas giant," the burly turian Spectre growled, staring down at the Salarian threateningly. "I do hope you have more for the Council than 'shoulds' and 'ifs', considering the amount that has been invested in this project."

"I'm sorry, but there's only so much we can mimic with simulations in a laboratory!" the scientist exclaimed, backing away with fear in his eyes. "If you want more accurate results, we'd have to actually mount it on a ship and field test it."

"Then mount it on a ship. I did not travel all this way to have you waste my time."

"We can't!" Rurnal exclaimed. "The Citadel Treaty forbids any Council race from using Node Drives for faster than light travel! If we put it on a ship, it would violate the treaty!"

"What the humans don't know will not hurt them," Saren growled. "But what we do not know about that drive WILL hurt us. One and a half billion people are dead, doctor. Billion. And our only hope of stopping that tragedy from happening again rests in your research."

"I thought SolForce turned over the _Leviathan's_ schematics," the Salarian said, confusion evident. "Wouldn't that give the Council everything they need to know?"

"You think we trust those monkeys to give us accurate data?" scoffed the Turian, his cybernetics whining slightly as his mandibles flexed. "Don't be naïve. They gave us just enough to avoid war. No more, no less. If we want to know what a Node Drive can really do, we must find it for ourselves."

"Are you certain this is what the Council wants? We were already in gray territory with our earlier research. If SolForce discovers we are building ships with Node Drives, they'll-"

"They will what?" The turian glared down at the cowering scientist, his eyes glowing dangerously. "Declare war? They would lose and they know it. The humans can complain and protest all they want. The Council has indulged their petty posturing and saber-rattling for far too long. We rule this galaxy, not those monkeys."

"I wouldn't say the Council-"

"I'm sorry." Saren grabbed the scientist by the neck, picking up with one hand and slamming him hard against a nearby wall. "I didn't realize you were more qualified to speak for the Council that I was. I'm only a Spectre, after all. Please. Continue."

"…we-we'll build it!" Rurnal gasped, his legs kicking as he struggled to breath. "We'll build the ship!"

"Excellent." Saren dropped the Salarian without another thought before walking over to a nearby terminal and copying several files from it. "I will present your preliminary findings to the Council in the meantime."

"…don't you want to know when we can start field trials?" the scientist asked, picking himself off the floor and rubbing his throat nervously.

"I'm sure you'll notify us when you're ready," the Spectre stated in an off-hand tone, not even bothering to glance at the salarian as he walked out of the lab, the other scientists making sure to give him a wide birth as he did. Good. They were right to fear him.

The Orion races had always been a problem, he reflected as he made his way to his personal courier ship. Everything that had gone wrong in the past few decades could be blamed solely on them. The billions that died in the Batarian Extermination, the billions that died on Thessia, the rapidly destabilizing political situation… It was obvious what needed to be done, really. But the Council's hands were tied by treaties and public opinion. History hates a warmonger. The cowardly politicians would never have the spine to fire the first shot. But that was fine. It was why Spectres existed, after all. To do the dirty work the Council couldn't.

The others all thought he was obsessed, he knew. Spectres were always a little unbalanced, and he admitted he'd taken his brother's death pretty hard. But he was past that now. It wasn't about the humans, the preeningly vile Morrigi, the Hivers, the Tarka, or even the traitorous Liir. It was about all of them together. They flaunted the Council's authority, shattered the peace his people had worked for centuries to build. They had to be controlled. How many more billions needed to die before every else saw what he did?

His black mood and blacker thoughts followed him all the way into his personal cabin. He kept it dark, to conceal his movements from any possible assassins. Nihlus had called that habit paranoid, but Saren preferred to think of it as preemptive self-defense. It wasn't paranoia when they really were all out to get you.

His terminal chimed, indicating an incoming message. He opened it with a wave of one hand, and read the message with satisfaction.

**"Looks like the Council got that report you sent. Like you predicted, it's forced the Liir's hand. See attached video for details. We are still looking for the Object, but we believe we are close now. As requested, we'll start the next phase as soon as we locate it."**

Saren noddedin approval. It wouldn't do if they found it too soon anyway. But once his agents knew its location, everything else would fall into place. He pulled up the video attachment, and found it was footage from the security cameras around the Citadel's Council Chamber. A public revelation then. That was even better than he'd hoped for.

Everything was going perfectly. Soon the Orion threat would end, once and for all. And then everything would be as it should. In the darkness of his cabin, he felt a warm sense of gratification as the video began to play, revealing the first fruits of his many labors.

"_So do any of you know what the hell is going on?" grumbled Var'Anu Kuumak'Orr, the aging Tarka ambassador. "What was so important Citadel couldn't tell me in my damn office?"_

"_Peace, Anudo," Prince Stone Mind buzzed, his antennae twitching slightly. "I am certain the Citadel would not call such a large and public audience without good reason."_

"_I just want to know what he's doing here," Ambassador Udina snapped, pointing angrily at the curled form of the Morrigi ambassador. "The Morrigi aren't even an associate member of the Council!"_

"_I am here at the request of the Voice of the Citadel," answered Arthax the Shining, raising his feathered head to regard Udina levelly. Judging from how the other ambassadors were focusing just under the Morrigi's chin, he was using his glamor to create an idealize illusion again. "Just as the rest of you are. I suggest you take the issue up with her."_

"_Him," a mechanically distorted voice corrected mildly, and a large holographic image of the Citadel Eldest appeared above the gathered dignitaries. "For such an occasion as this, I believe male would be the best."_

"_Thank you for the clarification," Tevos said diplomatically. "We must confess, we were slightly surprised by your request. The Liir have never asked to address the Council and Orion races together before, even after the Batarian Extermination. What was it you wanted to discuss?"_

"_We are…ashamed," the Citadel Eldest said, after a pause. It seemed as though he were trying to find the correct words. "Though the Liir have not attempted to hide our thoughts from you, we have not shown you everything. Some of you already know of what I speak."_

_Stone Mind nodded neutrally, as did Councilor Valern. Kuumak'Orr and Arthax merely seemed puzzled. Udina's perpetual frown suddenly deepened, and his face became clouded with anger. The Voice of the Citadel ignored all of them and continued speaking. _

"_We apologize for hiding this from you. The scars were too deep. We believed that the galaxy was not ready," he said, face tentacles slowly waving. "We believed that we were not ready. But now we fear the distrust our silence has caused may create more pain than it would prevent."_

_The gathered dignitaries looked at the Liir's holographic image with mixed feelings. Arthax's eyes had narrowed in suspicion, though Stone Mind's face was as unreadable as ever. Udina appeared to be a few seconds away from an outburst. Councilor Tevos' expression was calm, her raised brow inviting the Liir to continue while Valern's face was a perfect mask beside her. Sparatus was less polite, openly glowering up at the Liir ambassador's image, and Kuumak'Orr just looked bored. _

"_Many years ago, my people came to this chamber to beg forgiveness for our crimes against the Batarian race, and to seek atonement for our sins," announced the Voice of the Citadel. "Today, we have brought another race that seeks atonement for their crimes."_

"_What are you-" Udina began, but was cut off when six cloaked figures moved out of the milling dignitaries and stepped up behind the gathered ambassadors. Each was easily two meters tall, with muscles just as bulky and strong as the hulking Tarka ambassador. Their cloaks were white cloth that covered them from head to toe, but couldn't hide their long, fanged snouts. _

_Prince Stone Mind's guards recognized them first and instantly went for their weapons. C-Sec security was seconds behind them, four officers in full armor materializing from optical camouflage in the rafters to aim at the approaching figures. Udina himself reached for his sidearm, and Kuumak'Orr looked ready to attack with his bare fists. _

"_Peace," a calm voice said from behind the approaching figures. "'Put your sword back in its place, for all who draw the sword will die by the sword.'"_

_As one, the C-Sec officers dropped their weapons to the floor with a clatter. Prince Stone Mind's children fared no better, their bodies twisted out of their control as they were forced back to their original positions. Udina's hand twitched uncontrollably, his fingers opening of their own accord and instantly dropping the pistol he had been drawing. Kuumak'Orr snarled, but his legs seemed to have rebelled, refusing to move. _

"_I apologize for that imposition upon you all, but it was necessary to avoid regrettable violence," the voice continued, and a smaller figure walked out from behind the others. This one was much smaller, about the size of an asari or human, and carried an ornate and stylized shepherd's crook in one hand. It threw back its hood to reveal a furred, white head, capped by a shining silver helmet with a crucifix icon stamped into it. The creature's skin was weathered and wrinkly, but its eyes were piercing. As it approached, its long snout twisted into a broad smile that showed every single one of the creature's many fangs._

"_I am called the Deacon. I bring you greetings on behalf of the Prester Zuul."_


	35. Prester Zuul (Codex)

_And now for the exciting conclusion to my last little cliffhanger. Rendered in Codex form, mostly because I enjoy tormenting you all. Don't worry, you just missed a whole bunch of yelling, and poor Council Tevos getting another migraine. I'd feel bad for torturing the Council with stuff like this if it weren't so much fun. _

_Those of you who were planning on picking up The Deacon's Tale by Arinn Dembo might want to skip the first few paragraphs, because I'm about to ruin the plot for you. But it really can't be helped, because that book pretty much lays the groundwork for the Prester Zuul's existence. I can't really cover them without summarizing at least a little. I still recommend picking it up if you like the SotS universe though, it's not a bad read._

_Like what I did with them? Hate it? Leave a review!_

* * *

"_Are they INSANE?!"_

-Alleged response of SolForce Director Hannibal Freeborne upon being informed of the Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance

"_The existence of my kind in this galaxy is a great crime. We wish to atone for that transgression. Is it not the right of every sinner to seek redemption?"_

-The Deacon

The Prester Zuul are a splinter faction of the Zuul Horde that has its origins in the first battle of the Zuul War. Seeking the truth behind several mysterious attacks on their colonies, a group of operatives from all four Orion races set a trap at Durendal's Drift, a historic battlefield in the Orion Arm. Using the Hiver freighter _Jade Mirror_ they succeeded in luring the Zuul out of hiding and ambushed them with cloaked Tarka cruisers.

The battle that followed was named the Battle of the Jade Mirror, and was the first large scale ship action against the Zuul. During the battle, operatives successfully boarded the lead cruiser and confronted the fleet's commander, a Zuul known only as the Deacon. A Liir agent known as Ishii, renown as both a healer and warrior, successfully entered the Deacon's mind and inflicted severe psychic trauma on the Zuul at the cost of Ishii's own life.

In the wake of the Zuul's defeat at Durendal's Drift, the Deacon was handed over to the SIC for interrogation and study. Much of what is known about Zuul culture and history comes from his testimony while held captive by SolForce. The Deacon remained a prisoner of the SIC for over twenty years before using his powerful mental abilities to free several other imprisoned Zuul and escape.

According to the Deacon, Ishii's final psychic attack had changed him, completely shifting his worldview. He claims that he was consumed by regret and grief for many years, hoping for nothing more than death by old age to end his suffering. But after more than a decade of waiting to die with no deterioration of his physical condition, the Deacon states that he came to a realization. He believed that Ishii had modified not only his mind but his body as well, slowing his aging by a remarkable degree. Now fated to live much longer than his kin, the Deacon decided to use his remaining years to spread his new outlook with the rest of the Zuul.

The Deacon and his newly-converted followers fled SolForce-controlled space in a stolen ship, plunging directly into the chaos that marked the final years of the Zuul War. Though the Deacon's actions at this time are difficult to track, it is known that he converted many Zuul to his cause, often through direct psychic intervention. Within months of his return to Zuul space, he had gathered a rag-tag fleet of battered ships filled with Zuul he had 'converted'.

The Deacon and his follows struggled for over a year to fight their way out hostile Zuul space. When they finally escaped the Zuul and arrived at the perimeter of Liir space, they found a large fleet of ships waiting for them, allegedly led by the Black himself. If true, this would be the only time in recorded history the Black has personally met with an alien.

The renegade Zuul decided to name themselves 'Prester Zuul' after the ancient human legend of Prester John, a mythical king who was said to rule over a great hidden civilization surrounded by a dangerous wilderness. The Liir welcomed them, but concealed their existence from the other races for fear that they might attack the Prester Zuul because of what they were. The Prester Zuul's arrival in Liir space came just months after the Human/Turian War, and political tensions were still high.

The Prester Zuul served behind the scenes in the decades following their exodus from Zuul space. Due to their limited numbers, they elected to remain hidden until they were able to finish raising a new generation of Zuul in freedom with their Liir allies. This prevented them from participating directly in the Batarian Extermination, though several reports surrounding the Torfan Massacre suggest that Prester Zuul agents may have been active anonymously during the Extermination.

Following the _SFS Leviathan's_ attack on Thessia, tensions between the Orion Arm and the Citadel Council rose dramatically. Scattered reports of Zuul sightings from Liir colonies only increased these tensions, to the point where a Spectre was covertly deployed to investigate. To defuse the situation, the Prester Zuul agreed to reveal the truth about their existence to the galaxy. The Liir officially renamed their nation the Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance, and Prester Zuul settlements were opened to visitors for the first time.

Prester Zuul serve many different functions in Liir society. Zuul skilled in controlling others become Shepherds, using their domination ability to coordinate dozens of willing subjects in unified tasks. Shepherds are valued community leaders among the Liir, with several entering service as commanders of Liir cruiser squadrons or even as the Voice of smaller Liir worlds.

Zuul skilled at extracting information from others have a different function in Liir society. Known as Sin Eaters, these Zuul serve as therapists to Liir who have been through trauma. Since Liir do not sleep and have no subconscious, they are particularly vulnerable to mental afflictions like post-traumatic stress disorder. This vulnerability is considered to be a major factor behind the mass Liir suicides that followed the end of the Batarian Extermination. Sin Eaters provide a relief, taking the painful memories from Liir who can no longer handle such a burden and carrying them in the Liir's stead.

The newest Liir ships are indicative of the Zuul's intended role in their military. Many of these ships are battlerider carriers, with their riders specifically designed to be operated by Zuul. Zuul handle the mental stress caused by combat much better than Liir do, especially in close quarters. Prester Zuul are also trained as boarding teams in close ship action and as shock troops during ground invasions.

Prester Zuul are deeply spiritual, though they are quite unique in how this spirituality manifests itself. Unlike most races, the Zuul know their origins. Their creation is a documented historical fact. But unlike normal Zuul, who hold their creators in reverence as gods, the Prester Zuul see their creation as a great crime. However, like their former brethren, they seem to prefer mimicking and modify existing spiritual traditions, rather than inventing their own. Neo-Catholicism and Hinduism are both popular among the Prester Zuul because of their emphasis on sin and redemption. Several Prester Zuul have also expressed an interest in Hanar religion, referring to their creators as Dark Enkindlers.

Though they are technically the same political entity as the Liir, the Prester Zuul have received a chilly reaction from most interstellar nations. The Morrigi Confederation has completely barred any ship containing Prester Zuul from entering their territory. Though not quite as extreme as the Confederation, the Hiver Imperium and SolForce have both banned any Prester Zuul from setting foot on their planets or stations. Prester Zuul are permitted on Tarkasian Trade Stations only for official business, and they are not allowed to make landfall for any reason. The Prester Zuul have reacted to such discrimination with surprising acceptance.

The Council has not placed any serious restrictions on Prester Zuul at this time. They may freely travel through Council space and enjoy all the rights and privileges other sentients do. However, the entrance of the Prester Zuul has reopened several serious legal issues that had previously fallen out of public eye, particularly the legality of certain psychic abilities.

Though the use of telepathy in C-Sec interrogations has always been a source of debate, the Prester Zuul's natural talent for mental control and tampering has raised serious concern. The ethics of psychic modification are heavily contested, and though no laws currently prevent it, Prester Zuul are strongly encouraged to refrain from using their abilities while in Council Space. Prester Zuul are also forbidden from visiting former Batarian worlds due to ethical concerns.

The legal status of Prester Zuul females, due to their limited sentience, is still undecided. In normal Prester Zuul society, all mated females are considered to be the same entity as their husband. Though the Liir and Prester Zuul have assured the Council that this is an accurate representation of the coterie's mental state, the perpetual control male Zuul exert over their wives has caused protests among Sentient Rights groups.

Politically, the Prester Zuul and Liir are considered to be a single nation. All treaties that apply to the Liir also apply to the Prester Zuul, and vice versa. For this reason, the various nations in Council space have no official political stance toward the Prester Zuul. But on a personal level, different cultures have reacted to their presence in different ways.

Though many Turians are off-put by the Prester Zuul's mental abilities, their strong devotion to duty often creates common ground for the two species. Turians sympathize with the idea of strong leadership guiding others for the greater good, and as such have fewer concerns with Shepherds than most other races. Similarly, the idea of Sin Eaters shouldering the burden for those too weak to carry it is another concept that most Turians agree with, in theory. In practice, most Turians find the Prester Zuul's mental abilities extremely disturbing when witnessed first-hand.

Salarians often believe the Prester Zuul to be a novel curiosity. Though Prester Zuul often find their movements more strongly restricted on Salarian planets than in other regions of Council space, most Salarians are less afraid and more inquisitive. Many Prester Zuul have voiced a degree of discomfort with the attention they receive in Salarian space, especially among those interested in the biological or psionic sciences.

Prester Zuul have met with mixed reactions from the Asari. The Zuul's natural affinity for domination parallels the supposed abilities of individuals with the Ardat-Yakshi disability in Asari mythology, which most find very unsettling. In fact, many experts agree that ancient Ardat-Yakshi likely possessed domination abilities similar to those Zuul, with modern treatment methods have preventing this ability from manifesting for many thousands of years. Because of their similarity to such a legendary threat, a great deal of superstition surrounds the Prester Zuul in Asari culture. Though not always greeted with fear, Prester Zuul are often treated as something arcane and eldritch, to be handled with great care.

Hanar have a complicated relationship with the Prester Zuul. The Prester Zuul's constructed nature is similar to Hanar beliefs about the Enkindlers. But the Prester Zuul have flat out rejected their own 'Enkindlers' and actively work against the purpose of their Enkindling, which is troubling for many conservative Hanar theologians. Despite this, most Hanar have had little difficulties adapting their own religion to fit the Prester Zuul, embracing them as brothers in spirit, if not in purpose. Hanar preachers are not uncommon in Prester Zuul settlements, and the Hanar remain the only religious group that has not declared Prester Zuul practitioners to be heretics. Religious leader All-Bright Olos the 10th, the Sounaril of the Manas tradition, released this statement regarding the Prester Zuul:

"_The Enkindlers have always shown themselves to be pinnacles of selflessness, courtesy, and compassion. Just as they have shown their virtue by seeding the galaxy with generous gifts for these ones, the Zuul's Enkindlers have shown their wickedness by setting those they Enkindled on a path of destruction and abandoning them. To be Enkindled is not to be created, it is to be inspired, and all Zuul that are inspired to reject their False Enkindlers to follow the greatness of the True Enkindlers are as Enkindled as any other being." _

Elcor judges and other law experts are on the forefront of the many legal issues the Prester Zuul have raised within Council space, and for this reason many consider the Prester Zuul to be something of a headache. As most Prester Zuul leave economic and political decisions to the Liir, they have very few dealings with the Volus or Krogan. The Quarian Admiralty Board has forbidden any ship carrying Prester Zuul from entering close proximity with a Quarian vessel, officially to protect the security of the Migrant Fleet.


	36. Reject (Story)

_Well, it's been a while. Eh, what can I say? Life got busy. But here's the next chapter, a bit later than I'd like. As I'm sure you're about to find out, our human friends from Mass Effect are a little...different from what we're used to. I won't ruin it for you, but let's just say that SolForce is not the Systems Alliance, and the SIC is definitely not Cerberus. Even if Blue Section did poach most of their best personnel. As I'm sure you'll discover, biotics have been replaced with psions in this universe, since SolForce doesn't have any cores large enough to 'accidentally' create biotics like they did in canon. _

_Some other stuff you might be interested in though. I've been planning out my next Codex entries, and I've come to the realization that there are way too many topics to cover before the plot takes another twist and I have to focus them on 'current' events. So I've put another poll on my profile, and you can vote on which ones you'd like to see in the near future. Don't see what you want on there? Just send it over as a PM or a Review. As usual, I try to respond to everything I receive. _

* * *

"_And now the Council are just accepting them! I can't believe this."_

"_Ashley, I understand the whole Zuul situation is irritating, but you really should calm down."_

Lieutenant Jacob Taylor, formerly of SIC Blue Section, smirked quietly to himself as he worked his way through another set of exercises. Though he didn't really approve of the surveillance bugs Miranda had insisted on planting throughout the Trade Section Q-Ship they'd been assigned to, he did have to admit that the results were at least educational. He'd learned five new swear words in the last half hour alone.

"_Calm down? The Council is rolling out the freaking red carpet for a race of mind raping monsters. What is there to be calm about?"_

"_I'm sure the Council were adequately informed of any possible risks. They aren't total idiots. Besides, the Prester Zuul aren't like the ones we fought in the Zuul War."_

"_Because now that they've found Jesus, they're sweet and cuddly? Bullshit. Kaiden, this isn't some cartoon where you can redeem people with the power of love and positive thinking. They're monsters that break people's minds for fun. This is just another trick, I'm sure of it."_

"_I'm sure if they were really hiding something, the Liir wouldn't have accepted them."_

"_Why, because those genocidal tuna-eaters have been so trustworthy and infallible thus far? They wiped out the Batarians, but at the same time they welcome the Zuul with open arms! The Rippers are worse than those four-eyed bastards ever were."_

"_Apples and oranges, Ashley. Those were two completely different situations. It's not like the Liir didn't help us out in the Zuul War. They practically led the charge most of the time. If the Liir say that the Prester Zuul are on the level, then I trust them. Have some faith."_

"_A religious joke? Cute. But you're just taking their side because you trained on Jump Zero. I swear, you Liir-Touched are such bleeding-hearts."_

One of Jacob's eyebrows rose. Lieutenant Alenko had been on Jump Zero? He felt a brief stab of irritation toward Miranda for keeping that information from him, but quickly let it go. Information control was her specialty. If he'd needed to know, she'd have told him.

"_It's called optimism. You should try it some time. I don't need to have trained with a Liir to have some faith in the basic intelligence and decency of other people, alien or not."_

"_Yeah. Go ask Solomon Blasky and everyone else on _Nova Maria_ how well having faith in the decency of aliens worked out for them. Don't get me wrong, I'm not some crazed human supremacist or anything, but even you have to see that giving those psychos free reign based just on the word of some underwater hippies is a bad idea."_

"_And you can ask the billions that died in the Hiver/Tarka War how well judging a whole species on the actions of one group works. Look Ashley, we've been working together for how many years now? I'm your friend. I'm not asking you to calm down because I'm worried about your blood pressure."_

Jacob stopped in the middle of his most recent set of sit-ups, focusing his full attention on the small room's glowing terminal. He suspected that he already knew what Lieutenant Alenko was alluding to, but he had to be sure.

"_You mean those two Blue Section operatives we picked up? I know they're both psions like you, but neither of them had any Empathic talent listed on their files."_

Sighing, the former Blue Section operative rose to his feet and began wiping himself off with a towel. Truthfully, neither of them had any real skill with Empathy, but the fact that their new Black Section teammates didn't trust them was certainly food for thought. He wasn't sure if he should be disappointed or impressed by their paranoia. Besides, a small part of his mind reminded him, it's not like you and Miranda are being fully honest about your mission either.

"_That doesn't mean they don't have it. There's a reason they call the Blue Section TFC the 'Illusive Man'. The guy rations information like you wouldn't believe."_

"_I did think that putting two more psions on this team seemed a little strange. It's not like we were lacking for psychic firepower. So you think those Blue Section spooks are up to something? "_

The corners of Jacob's mouth lifted slightly. They worked for Black Section and they were calling him a spook? They were the ones who spent all their time chasing ghost stories and space monsters around the ass end of nowhere. Lieutenant Alenko was about to continue when the proximity sensor Miranda had rigged in the hallway outside their small bunkroom began to flash. With a wave of his omnitool, he banished the surveillance feed and assumed a casual posture.

Miranda Lawson swept into their room with her usual air of dignity and professionalism, calmly pressing the lock icon as soon as the door slid shut behind her. With an aside glance that made her eyes glow imperceptibly, she activated the sound-absorbing privacy bubble she'd set up in as soon as they arrived. When the small light on the device turned green, indicating that it was active, her calm smile turned to a furious snarl and she shouted in frustration.

"Agh! That…idiot!"

"Wait, who's an idiot?" Jacob asked, pulling on a shirt and turning to face her.

"Shepard! That utter ass!" she swore, beginning to pace up and down the narrow room. "'I'll take it under advisement.' That idiotic Black Section spook!"

"I'm pretty sure I missed something here," Jacob remarked, trying to keep the smirk off his face as he remembered Alenko's earlier insult. "Start at the beginning."

"Our illustrious commander refuses to see reason," she growled, her face dark. "I explained that I have more operational experience in Council space, that I've been coordinating multiple agents against the Shadow Broker for years, but what do I get? The commander put me in an advisory role. Advisory!"

"What's so bad about that? Sounds like Shepard wants your advice."

"Because I should be leading the team, not stuffed into a corner and consulted for trivia!" Miranda snapped angrily. "This was my operation, and I'm not going to let some jarhead in power armor screw it up by stomping around looking for imaginary space monsters!"

"Look, I'm not crazy about getting transferred to Black Section either," Jacob stated in a firm tone. "But they're going after _Leviathan_, Miranda. I can't think of anything that's more important than that."

"I know _Leviathan_ is important," she agreed. "This could be the biggest threat we've faced since the Zuul. The Council can wave their hands and call us liars, but we know the truth. Which is why I can't be sidelined like this."

Jacob arched an eyebrow inquisitively, inviting her to continue.

"I can do this. I know all the players, all the pieces, I've planned every operation," she explained. "But this Commander Shepard just drops out of the sky with a mandate straight from the Director, and suddenly I have nothing. It's Black Section's operation, and the Commander…is not what I was expecting."

"What were you expecting?"

"Anything else. Shepard's file is Legate's eyes only. Complete blackout. Not even background or tactical information. From that, I was expecting an analyst, an operative, or maybe a strategist. I got a grunt."

"Um, hi?" Jacob remarked, waving. "Remember me? Full tour in the VacForces as a combat psion? I'm a grunt, Miranda."

"I didn't mean it like that," she said with a dismissive wave. "I've been checking around. Apparently, Shepard leads every ground mission personally. Every single one! Did you know there's even an old Hiver War assault rifle hanging on the commander's wall?"

"Really? Didn't know Shepard went for antiques. Nice taste though, it was a good gun."

"The commander apparently thinks so," Miranda stated snippily. "It has a name. It's called 'Shannon'."

"So Shepard likes guns," said Jacob in a dismissive tone. "I knew a merc once who named his Zipper Jessie, and that guy was one of the toughest and smartest bastards I ever met. We've all got weird habits."

"I don't," she replied with finality.

"Stalking your kid sister isn't weird?"

"…I'm just looking out for her. We've both been in this business long enough to know you can't take the SIC's promises at face value."

"I hear that," Jacob agreed. "So how is Oriana doing?"

"She's fine. They've put her in an accelerated learning program," Miranda explained, her tone flat and face expressionless. "At this rate, she'll be headed to university in a year or two."

"She sounds like she's doing well then." They sat in silence for a moment, before Jacob decided to throw caution to the winds and just ask. "Are you ever going to tell her?"

"Tell her what?" she snapped, her foul mood returning. "She's happy the way she is."

"She'd be happier if she knew she had a sister."

"No. I'm not opening that can of worms," said Miranda angrily. "The less she knows about me, Father, the SIC, and the…enhancements, the better off she'll be."

"Don't you think-"

"The topic is closed," she returned in a tone that would allow no argument. He could feel the anger radiating off of her as she glared at him. Considering Miranda normally had some of the strongest mental shields of anyone he had even met, the fact that he could sense her emotions without trying meant that he had pushed too far. He backed down.

"So…" he began, changing the subject. "Did you tell our new commander about your unique qualifications?"

"Yes. I was planning on keeping them to myself, but Shepard's refusal to see reason forced my hand. For all the good it did. The idiot didn't even seem to care. Almost wish Father had been in the room. Watching all his expensive research and modifications get dismissed like that would have probably given him a heart attack. Assuming the bastard has a heart, anyway."

"Well, at least the commander didn't have a problem with it," remarked Jacob optimistically. "Not everyone in SolForce is a fan of genetic modifications. I've heard some nasty stories about first-gen colonists catching flack for their enviro-mods when they try to sign up."

"Which is of course why they have Father in a cushy research lab under 'house arrest'," Miranda scoffed. "He's even got his own STAFF. Ugh. This whole business is so disgustingly two-faced."

"No arguments there," he agreed. "If it weren't for all the people we've saved, I'd never have lasted this long trying to play spy. Shepard seems on the level though. You know, for Black Section."

"That's not a good thing." Seeing Jacob's quizzical expression, she sighed and continued. "Look. All this 'honesty' means that either the Commander really is stupid enough to fully disclose the details of a classified intelligence mission, or is so good at hiding the truth that no one on this ship can pick out what's really going on."

"So you're saying that Shepard's either recklessly naive or an evil genius?" he joked, his tone indicating his disbelief. "I don't buy it, Miranda. The commander's seen too much action to be naïve, and doesn't seem the type for an evil genius label. Didn't you just get done calling Shepard a 'grunt?'"

"Action where?" she asked accusingly, her eyes taking on the focused expression they always did when she started in on a particularly tricky problem. "All of Shepard's files are classified, remember? You don't do that for just an ordinary operative. And I know what I said. I have an eidetic memory. But it's possible that I only saw what the commander wanted me to see."

"So you think all this is an act?"

"Maybe. It's easy to fake a gung-ho attitude. But someone like that would know better than to insist on leading all ground missions personally. Even the dumbest grunt knows how to delegate."

"Still here, Miranda…"

"The commander could be a thrill-seeker," she reasoned, completely ignoring Jacob's protests as she began thinking out loud. He sighed and let her continue. He actually thought it was a good habit for her. Even if the words weren't really for his benefit, having her confide in someone else even peripherally was a big step from where she was when they first met. "But I doubt a battle-junkie would have gotten this far up the ranks, or get put on a mission this sensitive."

"Maybe Shepard is just a control freak," he put in, slightly emphasizing the last two words with a wry smile. A little teasing was good for her social development too, in his humble opinion.

"No, I thought of that already," she replied, so deep in her own thoughts she completely missed his subtle dig. "The commander didn't show any signs of OCD or anxiety when we spoke. And again, I doubt someone that unstable would be on this kind of mission. Are Shepard's missions really so classified they need a full Commander on hand at all times? What the hell could they even be investigating that's this sensitive?"

"Which brings us back to the original question," Jacob said, wearily resigning himself to his role as sounding board. "Just who the heck is Commander Shepard, really?"


	37. A Brief Comparative Essay (Codex)

_You wanted ships? You get ships! I'm leaving my poll up just so people can still vote if there's another Codex they'd like to see, but this one was pretty clearly the winner from the choices I presented. _

_Like many of my previous Codex chapters this is an in-universe document, this time an essay by a young Salarian in their equivalent of secondary school. Please keep that in mind when reading this. If something seems off or unrealistic about how ships or tactics are described, it's because our poor author got all his information off forums on the extranet and has a very limited grasp of how naval combat would actually work. This is also the source for any discrepeancy between what he describes and what you would experience if you actually tried to play these tactics in Sword of the Stars 2 (where I got most of my information on Orion ships and tactics). He may get the details wrong, but he has a good general idea on how the different races and ships line up._

_A shout out to LogicalPremise, by the way. I took a lot of the Council's tactics and technology from his story "A Season of Sorrows Unending", with his permission. Go check out his stuff, its very well thought out. _

**A Brief Comparative Essay on Orion and Citadel Combat Vessels**

_By Aestann Gulis_

The discovery and integration of the Orion Arm is without a doubt the single most important event of this millennium. The many technologies the Orion races brought to the Council have caused revolutionary changes in culture, trade, medicine, but most importantly, in warfare.

Prior to the opening of the Orion Arm, space combat was restricted to long range bombardment, with point defense 'knife fights' occurring only as a last resort. Lasers, though powerful and capable of bypassing kinetic barriers, could not muster the sheer crushing power of a cruiser or dreadnought's spinal cannon. Close ranged battles prevented easy aiming of spinal weapons, thus limiting the damage output of fleets. Thus the knife fight was restricted to smaller and more maneuverable frigates, while the larger ships engaged at much longer ranges.

The Orion Arm changed everything. A single Lancer heavy beam weapon provides almost half the energy yield of a Turian dreadnought's spinal cannon, and the pre-refit Sword of the Stars class dreadnought mounted twelve of them. To add insult to injury, a pre-refit SolForce dreadnought measured just 216 meters, not even the size of a Turian frigate, which measured 236.5 meters. It was no wonder that the first Turians to engage a full SolForce fleet got their asses thoroughly handed to them.

Which is not to say that Citadel ship design at the time was faulty, or that our technology was inferior. A Turian dreadnought's main gun fires twenty times per minute. An Orion Arm Heavy Driver fired at the same rate, but only impacted for 2.6 kilotons, compared to the 38 kilotons of a Turian cannon. Without element zero to stabilize themselves, the force from a single shot was often enough to send Orion ships hurtling miles off course, even if they were able to survive the initial impact. Orion Arm targeting systems also lagged far behind their Citadel counterparts, with ballistic weapons having only a fraction of the effective range guided ordinance like missiles or torpedoes could provide.

Mass effect cores also allowed Citadel ship a level of maneuverability impossible for conventional thrusters. A Turian frigate could dart and swoop like an atmospheric fighter, while an Orion dreadnought, though similarly sized, found the simple act of turning to be a ponderous chore. Orion field technology, though capable of great feats, was still quite limited, unable to project a full shield envelop over their comparatively small dreadnoughts, while Council ships easily projected full barriers around ships as massive as the _Destiny Ascension_.

Following the Citadel Truce and the technological exchanges that occurred in its aftermath, virtually all Orion ships were redesigned with the properties of element zero in mind. Though prohibited by the Truce from mounting element zero cores strong enough to reduce the mass of their ships to zero, they were able to use smaller cores to decrease the mass of their vessel to _NEARLY_ zero, allowing them to benefit from the added maneuverability element zero provided. The reduction in mass allowed them to mount extra armor, systems, and weaponry, effectively doubling the size of their ships.

For their part, the races in Citadel space realized that the days where war was decided by stand-off bombardment were over. With the speed increases element zero provided, many Orion Arm ships could even surpass their Citadel counterparts for slower-than-light speed, and technology like Deflector fields could repel even the strongest kinetic strikes. Though the strength of Citadel vessels remains at long range, virtually all active vessels have been refitted to carry turrets and energy-based weaponry to allow them to effectively fight in close engagements.

To illustrate my point, let us compare an Octavian class Turian dreadnought and a post-refit Olympus Class SolForce dreadnought. The merits and abilities is a complicated subject, but for the purpose of this exercise I will use the official calculated yield of their weapons. According to the new dreadnought classifications provided in the Citadel Truce, weapon yield is calculated in average energy transferred to a target over a period of time. The formula for calculating such values is complicated and highly classified, but the final result is popularly known as DPM, or Damage Per Minute.

I must stress before I begin that DPM is NOT a good way to measure a weapon's true effectiveness. DPM assumes ideal conditions, such as all shots from a weapon hitting and penetrating the armor, or that a beam will remain focused on a single point for the full duration of its energy stream. It ignores the special properties weapons like Inertial Cannons possess, and disregards the effect of specific weapons on crew or systems. That said, it is still the best way to get an idea of a ship's damage potential.

An Octavian class dreadnought utilizes the traditional spinal cannon as its main weapon. This gun has a total DPM rating of 1860. In addition, several of the dreadnought's old broadside guns were removed to allow the remaining weapons a greater arc of fire. Each broadside array provides 540 DPM. Following the introduction advanced lasers by the Orion races, the ship's GARDIAN Point Defense array was upgraded to UV beams, providing an additional 1200 DPM. The ship also mounts a half dozen fusion turrets and five traditional ballistic cannons, at 924 DPM and 540 DPM each. The ship's total DPM clocks in at 5604. This final value disregards the firepower provided by the ships small fighter compliment.

In contrast, an Olympus class dreadnought relies on its four antimatter torpedoes for its long-range capabilities. Together, they provide 608 DPM. At medium ranges, it can engage with its three Heavy Drivers, at 1260 DPM. It is also equipped with four Meson Beams, which provide 1152 DPM. But the Olympus class' true strength is in smaller weaponry. It mounts fourteen antimatter missile launchers (532 DPM), ten mass drivers (2100 DPM), eight variable phasers (768 DPM), and eight fusion cannons (1232 DPM). It is also equipped with thirty four small pulse phasers, for an additional 3502 DPM. All told, the Olympus class has a combined DPM of 11154, twice that of the Octavian.

I must again stress that DPM does not equal combat potential. It is physically impossible for either ship to bring all of its guns to bear on a single target. A weapon on the starboard hull cannot shoot through the ship to attack an enemy on the port side. Similarly, the effects of various weapons are ignored in this calculation. Citadel ballistic weapons do reduced damage compared to their Orion counterparts, simply due to their superior velocity. They punch clean through most armor, and as such are highly effective in combat, but do less damage against an unprotected target like a DPM meter. Meson beams have a similar problem.

Despite these factors, the Olympus class dreadnought undeniably mounts more firepower than the Octavian class. The catch is that this firepower is almost entirely short ranged compared to what Citadel races use. The only weapons the Olympus class mounts that have even a fraction of the range the Octavian's main gun possesses are its missiles and torpedoes, both of which can be intercepted by the Octavian's GARDIAN PD grid. If an Olympus class could close to medium or close range, suddenly the balance of power would shift as it brings its superior number of weapons to bear. Maneuvering and strategy are key for Orion races in battle for this reason.

Another common issue is the size difference between the two ships. An Olympus class dreadnought is half the size of an Octavian, but still manages to mount more firepower. How is that possible? Most novice theorists believe it to be because Orion design is superior to Citadel engineering, but that's not true. It's possible for three reasons.

First, the majority of the Octavian class's length is due to the size of its spinal gun. As a railgun, the length of its rails factors into the speed of the projectile. If the gun were removed or cut down, its remaining armaments could easily be mounted on a much smaller frame. This brings me to another reoccurring issue I hear armchair theorists often bring up, the idea that Orion ballistic weapons are superior because they can produce large yields from comparatively small weapons. Again, this idea is ridiculously misguided. As ballistics are a factor of Mass and Acceleration, Orion races must increase one or the other to create any increased yield. To that end, Orion ballistic weapons fire much larger slugs than their Citadel counterparts. Because they find an increase in size to be undesirable, they achieve an increased velocity by increasing the magnetic forces on their drivers. This allows them to increase the power of their weapons, but at the price of making them considerably more unstable. Orion ballistic weapons are notoriously inaccurate and have worse rates of fire compared to Citadel weapons. They also require more energy to function, and have to dedicate much more space to ammunition storage.

The second factor in the increased size of Citadel dreadnoughts is their use of baffled armor. Citadel armor is designed in layers, with large gaps of empty space between each layer. Because they were originally designed with the limitations of mass in mind, Orion vessels are solid masses, with much thicker armor and no layering. As you can imagine, this baffling causes Citadel dreadnoughts to be much larger than they strictly have to, but the protective effect they provide is well worth the effort. A common tactic in the Orion Arm is known as the "Rip and Tear". No doubt you have already realized from the implied brutality the tactic was first named by a Tarkasian. The first step, the Rip, is to barrage an enemy with weapons that are not designed to penetrate, but will do considerable damage to the armor itself. This can be seen in the Olympus class's weaponry, as its torpedoes, missiles, and drivers are all considered excellent for this takes. Once the armor has been strategically weakened or ripped off (hence the name), accurate, penetrating weapons like phasers and beams go to work on the vulnerable sections, punching through the remaining armor layers to strike deep at the ship's internal structure. This is the Tear. Though the weapons used vary between races, most prefer to use long range weapons for Ripping, so the armor is already damaged when they close enough to use their close ranged Tearing weapons. As you may have guessed, baffled armor is resistant to this tactic. Blast weapons like missiles and torpedoes often get caught up on the remains of the outermost layer, detonating them prematurely or deflecting and defusing the force of drivers and fusion weapons. Baffled armor is also resistant to armor-piercing weapons like HEAP rounds, as it causes them to deliver their penetrating payload inside the first armor layer, rather than directly into the interior of the ship.

The third reason is one we've already covered: mass. Orion race ships, even when equipped with eezo cores, are still highly limited by their existing mass. Inexperience with mass effect technology generally means that Orion ship have difficulty shifting their mass on the fly, and cannot raise or lower their mass as dramatically as a Citadel ship might. A Turian dreadnought can go from being virtually massless to double or triple its original mass in just a few seconds, allowing it to both maneuver at speed and weather a heavy barrage without being thrown radically off course. Orion arm ships would take two or three times as long to shift their mass so dramatically, so they compensate by having less mass to try and shift in the first place. This has had several positive side effects as well, such as their reduced size making them harder targets and allowing them to reduce the amount of crew they require to operate. Unfortunately, the density of Orion ships usually means that an Orion vessel takes almost as much resources and time to build as a Citadel vessel twice its size would.

Another major change in modern warfare pioneered by the Orion Arm is the introduction of Battle Riders. The original concept of Battle Riders was created by the Tarka Silver Imperium, which created the first Hunter/Killer vessels. Hunter/Killers were Tarka cruisers with their FTL warp engines removed, as well as all other unnecessary systems, like crew quarters or cargo holds. In essence, a Hunter/Killer vessel is nothing more than a bridge with guns and STL engines strapped on it. Without FTL engines, Hunter/Killer ships were dependent on Hunter Carriers to transport them into battle and provide support for their crews. Thought the Tarka first created the concept, the Liir swiftly adopted it as well, and SolForce and the Hiver Imperium soon followed suit.

Battle Riders have several advantages over their FTL equivalents. Though they cannot operate independently, Battle Riders are much faster and better armed than FTL vessels. Without a large FTL drive to support, Battle Riders can devote more space and power to weaponry. As Battle Riders aren't expected to operate independently, they need only store enough supplies for a day of travel at most. Medical facilities are not required, as injured crew only need to be stabilized long enough to be returned to the Battle Rider's carrier. Some Battle Riders even remove the ship's life support, letting the crew rely on the air in the suits for the duration of combat. All told, a Battle Rider variant can sometimes eliminate half of a ship's original systems. This free space is filled with additional weapons, armor, or STL engines to improve its combat performance. As a rule, a Battle Rider will always out perform an FTL ship of the same class, and is cheaper to produce as well.

These were seen as the solution to a problem the Orion Races had been encountering even before First Contact. Frigates (or destroyers, as they are called in the Orion Arm), even when organized into wolf packs, were unable to effectively engage larger ship classes without massive casualties. As you may have noticed in my earlier comparison, Orion vessels typically mount large collections of small weapons, rather than one or two powerful guns. Without element zero, Orion destroyers could not muster the agility to avoid the heavy firepower of cruisers or dreadnoughts, and the varied armaments of larger ships allowed them to easily engage multiple small vessels at a time. This is not the case with Citadel vessels, where the agility of frigates makes them very difficult targets. Citadel cruisers or dreadnoughts would have to spend considerable time and effort aligning their main guns to destroy a single frigate, and in that time the rest of the squadron would be able to close and engage.

Even after the introduction of mass effect technology, destroyers lagged behind other ship classes. The prevalence of fast, accurate weapons like lasers or particle beams meant that even with the added agility, destroyers would require three to one odds or more to even have a hope of victory against a cruiser. Even then, casualties would be extremely heavy. To be viable in combat, destroyers required support from larger ships, or some new edge. Battle Riders provided that edge.

Today, the term Battle Rider refers both to any craft without an FTL drive that is carried to battle by another ship, and to the frigate/destroyer class of Battle Rider. Cruiser class Battle Riders are known as Battlecruisers, and dreadnought class Battle Riders are known as Battleships. To date, no Battleships exist, though the Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance and Turian Hierarchy have announced that they are constructing super-dreadnought vessels to carry such ships. Today virtually all FTL destroyer vessels have been retired from active service in the Orion Arm, replaced by Battle Riders. As Citadel frigates did not suffer from the same weaknesses as Orion destroyers, most still retain their FTL capabilities. Though the Elcor, Volus, and Asari have all experimented with Battle Riders, only the Turians have fully embraced the concept. Because Turians believe in patrol in force, with their patrol groups often comprised of a full squadron of cruisers with frigate support, the idea of removing the frigates and replacing them with Battle Riders appealed to them. Though hard facts are difficult to come by, extranet rumors suggest that all Turian frigates will be replaced by Battle Riders within the next two decades.

Battle Riders come in many variants, each named after their primary purpose. The most common is the Patrol Battle Rider, which is designed as an all-purpose workhorse ship. The Spinal Battle Rider mounts a powerful spinal gun, similar to Citadel frigates, and is designed to engage larger enemy ships like cruisers or dreadnoughts. Interceptor Battle Riders are designed for speed, dog-fighting with frigates and other battle riders using their superior maneuverability. Torpedo Battle Riders are built around powerful energy torpedo launchers, and often break away from the main fleet to attack large enemy ships from a distance. They use their superior range and maneuverability to avoid retaliation. Escort Battle Riders are designed to remain near their fleets, screening them from missiles, drones, and other Battle Riders with their numerous small weapons. Scout Battle Riders are intended as recon units, scouting for the main fleet and acting as spotters for beyond-visual-range weaponry. Due to their reliance on powerful ballistic weapons, Citadel races favor Scout Battle Riders over any other type.

Though the Orion Arm has made many changes to how interstellar wars are fought, each race approaches combat differently and has made different use of the new technologies available to them. A common flaw I see in many analyses is assuming that all ships are created equal or utilize the same technologies. They are not, and they done. A side effect of the Orion Arm's diverse technology base is that their ships are also extremely diverse. Some ships mount powerful heavy lasers in fixed mounts. Some, like the Olympus class we discussed, mount heavy armor and many smaller weapons instead of several large weapons. Citadel ships are designed as a single unit, with all parts of the ship customized for a specific class. Orion ships are different. They are designed in sections, with a unique command section, engine section, and a mission section dedicated to the ship's primary purpose. In this way, ships can be quickly customized to fill specific battlefield roles without extensive design work. The practice was first adopted during the technological race of the Hiver/Tarka War, where all three sides realized that they needed highly adaptable fleets that could be quickly designed and optimized for the latest technology in order to stay competitive. Though Orion ships still require design and prototyping, it is a much quicker process for them than it is for Citadel races. The sections of the ships also allow an added degree of survivability in combat. Secondary bridges allow a ship to still fight even after its command section was completely destroyed, and a ship whose mission section has been smashed can still fight on in a limited capacity. One of the downsides to these designs is that it is much easier to destroy individual sections. The engine section of an Orion vessel is designed to snap off completely when enough damage has been done to it, where a Citadel ship's engines might still retain some limited functionality even after it has been heavily damaged. Orion vessels are also very easy to visually identify. An antimatter warp section maintains the same appearance and weapon layout on all ship models, regardless of their role in combat. This allows opponents to quickly assess the capabilities of an enemy fleet and plan against the weak points of those ships.

Despite the natural diversity of ship design and construction, some patterns have developed due to racial preference and access to specific technology. Though it is an over-simplification, the three basic traits each ship can possess are movement, armor, and weaponry. As I mentioned, these are extreme simplifications. Movement can and does include such traits as acceleration, top speed, agility, and other factors. Weaponry includes range, DPM, weapon arcs, turret spread, and many other things. Armor can include deflection and reflection, armor placement, and armor materials. Interestingly, it is the psychology of each race that determines what traits they favor in a ship, as this psychology will prioritize certain avenues of research that will then be translated to their ships.

For example, Asari ships undeniably have the best mass effect cores in the known galaxy. The glowing oval design of the Cascade Core is a very visually distinct image, and the capabilities of the Core are well known. Asari ships can shift their mass almost instantly, giving them the best acceleration and deceleration of all Citadel ships. Some Asari ships have even been known to perform a maneuver known as the Flash-Step, where the drive core is utilized to create a small corridor of massless space that they then fling themselves through, almost teleporting across the battlefield and shoving enemy vessels violently out of the way. This ability is similar to the tactic used by their commandos, and operates on similar principles. The other unique property of Asari ships is their armor. Like their Cascade Cores, Silaris armor is the best in known space, surpassing even the Orion Arm's neutronium-laced adamantine armor in kilogram for kilogram tests. However, silaris armor is far and again the most expensive type of armor known, with the cost of armor often outstripping the cost of the eezo core in many Asari vessels. For all their maneuverability and armor, Asari weapons are often only average, with only their particle weapons standing out as exceptional. Because of these factors, Asari often prefer harassment tactics in battle. They use their dreadnoughts and heavier cruisers to bombard the enemy from a distance, while their more agile frigates and light cruisers dart through and around enemy formations, striking vulnerable targets and crippling the enemy. The superior armor of their frigates and cruisers allow them to safely engage against much larger ships, and the agility of even their larger ships allows them to avoid most long-ranged bombardment. The constant maneuvering by Asari fleets to avoid long range fire is often known as the Ghost Dance, and is as beautiful as it is lethal. By the time an enemy fleet can fight its way past the Asari skirmishers to range close enough to penetrate the Ghost Dance, they've already been heavily damaged. The asari heavy elements only have to mop up. Clever use of this tactic has resulting in Asari Op For squadrons destroying their Turian counterparts without suffering a single casualty.

We Salarians prefer a very different approach to war. Our ships maintain the highest top speed of any Council race, even if their agility and acceleration are no match for that of the Asari. We combine this with our liberal use of stealth technology to create one of the most lethal tactics in Council space. We have always led the Council in stealth technology, and with the introduction of Cloaking fields that can completely hide ships from the enemy, we have truly become a force to be reckoned with. Advances to cloaking technology have allowed ships to fire even while cloaked, and we have taken full advantage of this. Over half of our navy is equipped with stealth armor or cloaks of some kind, and we make heavy use of ECM and ECCM to both hide our own positions and project sensor ghosts to confuse the enemy. Our ships are notoriously fragile, with thin armor and structure build for speed and power rather than survivability. This is an acceptable tradeoff, as in an ideal situation, a ship should not be taking fire at all if the battle is planned correctly. Our ships prefer to approach their enemy unseen, fire massive alpha strikes with all their weapons, and then use their superior speed to quickly redeploy away from any retaliation. Because of this, our guns have some of the lowest range and fire rates of any Citadel ballistic weapon, but do the most damage per shot of any Citadel ballistic weapon. Larger ships, like dreadnoughts, cannot be hidden with cloaks, but use ECM and stealth armor to fire long range strikes based off data provided by cloaked spotters. In a well-planned battle, the battle should be over before the first gun even fires. Salarians are one of the only races to not utilize Battle Riders in any capacity. This is because our frigates are designed to operate independently or in small wolf packs, and the addition of a slower, more exposed support craft would only slow them down.

Turian ships are the most universal of any Citadel craft. If you can name a mission, a Turian cruiser can probably perform it. Escort, forward strike duty, troop deployment, a Turian ship can do it all. The capabilities of their ships vary based off their roles. Most Turian frigates have decent speed and agility, not as fast as Salarian ships or as agile as agile as Asari vessels, but faster and more agile than a Krogan or Batarian vessel was. Turian ships have decent armor, which is sloped and angled specifically to deflect incoming fire and allow them to survive even heavy bombardment. Turian ships are specifically built to have very small forward and broadside profiles, making them much harder to hit from those angles. Unfortunately, the structural designs of Turian ships are not quite as hardy, but there is a reason for that. Turian ships were designed for easy mass production. Compared to Asari or Salarian ships, both of which mount a great deal of expensive special equipment, Turian ships are cheap and easy to build, and they build them by the dozen. From a Turian perspective, their ships doesn't need to be the most well-built or advanced, since they have more ships than anyone else. Turian guns are built around this theory, with some of the highest rates of fire in Council space and long barrels for accuracy at range. The ideal formation for Turians is the gun line, where the largest ships line up and begin raining a hail of death at the enemy. Drones, fighters, and frigates serve as spotters and skirmishers, highlighting vulnerable targets and preventing faster enemy elements from closing with the 'guns'. Cruisers and other medium ships screen for the dreadnoughts and other artillery ships, holding the enemy static while they are demolished by superior Turian firepower.

You may have noticed that we Salarians are the only Council race that does not rely on some variation of the 'hold and smash' tactic. Even with the new advancements and capabilities of our technologies, the Citadel races' mastery of mass effect technology means that we still tend to rely on long range firepower over other, more direct solutions. Orion races, due to their varied psychology and technology, are a bit more colorful in their tactics.

Hivers, for instance, have some of the lowest technology of the Orion Arm. They lack any dedicated FTL engines, and have very limited use of energy weapons. Most Hiver ships only mount lasers for point defense or as powerful forward weapons, like Lancers. But they have turned these weaknesses into their strengths. Because they have no FTL, they rely on STL fusion torches to travel the stars. This gives them the highest top speed in the known galaxy, surpassing even our own ships at maximum thrust. It takes some time for these engines to build up speed, however, and the engines are designed for forward movement, not maneuverability. Hivers are well aware that their fleets will not be able to call in reinforcements until they are able to deploy a gate, and so are built for maximum survivability. Hiver ships are often lined with thick adamantine plates and have many redundant bulkheads and pylons to prevent structural collapse if the armor is ever breached. For this reason, some Hiver ships are even tougher than Asari ships. As mentioned previously, Hivers do not usually use energy weapons. Instead, they have developed several different types of missile and ballistic weapons they use instead. Without energy weapons to pass through shields, they use special Shield Breaker rounds. To defeat armor, they use guns designed to fire HEAP or solid AP shells. At longer ranges, they use normal missiles, fusion and photonic torpedoes, and solid kinetic kill missiles. Because of their use of ballistic and missile weapons, Hivers prefer to engage at medium to long ranges, where their guns can do the most good. Unlike Citadel races, most Hiver ships are more damaging in broadside attacks, where they can fire more of their turrets at the enemy. The most common tactic used by the Hivers was darkly nicknamed the Hammer Swarm by SolForce, and involves their toughest ships accelerating toward the enemy and then gradually curving around the edges of the enemy formation. This allows the Hiver ships to maintain a high top speed and hold the enemy in place. Hivers are used to being technologically out classed, and know that they will often need superior numbers to triumph. For this reason, the Hammer Swarm is not intended to destroy the enemy in a single thrust. It grinds away at the ends of the enemy and ties them down, while the Hiver Gate ship deploys. Once the gate is active, the entire Hiver navy can swarm through and crush the enemy under endless waves of bullets and armor.

Liir use very different tactics. Unlike Hiver vessels, Liir ships have relatively weak armor. The semi-organic coral structure of the interior is extremely durable, however, and Liir telekinesis is very useful for repairing combat damage. Liir flickerwarp drives are notoriously slow near gravity wells like planets, but they offer other advantages. Flickerwarp functions by rapidly teleporting the ship inches at a time at a rapid pace. This swift microteleportation does take some time to accelerate and decelerate (the drive cannot be disengaged in the middle of a rapid teleportation sequence), it is still much faster than trying to decelerate with an inertial drive. Flickerwarp provides one other advantage: the constant teleportation sometimes allows shots to pass right through the teleporting ship, giving it an extra layer of protection. The Batarian Extermination revealed that the Liir's preferred method of engagement is at a distance, bombarding their enemies with energy torpedoes. Ships designed for close battle were created, but such combat was avoided if possible. But now that the Prester Zuul have joined their ranks, new tactics have developed. The Liir/Prester Zuul alliance field some of the most powerful Battle Riders in existence, and are one of only three races to field Battlecruisers. When their new Leviathan is complete, they will be the first race to deploy Battleships as well. Liir Battle Riders are almost universally designed for close engagement, and as such are crewed almost entirely by Zuul. Even Black Swimmers are too psychically sensitive to participate in close battle without serious discomfort and mental trauma. As I mentioned, Liir prefer to pelt their enemies from a distance with energy torpedoes, circling around them like aquatic predators. This circling tactic, like the one used by the Hivers, allows them to continue moving so they can benefit from the protection of their flicker drives. While the Liir vessels circle, the Zuul dart in for the enemy's heart, using their advanced beam weapons to tear at the weak points exposed by the torpedo salvos.

Humans have a very unique approach to war. Their ships mount strong armor, but the general structure of their ships is somewhat weak, for the same reason the structure of Turian ships is weak: it is designed for mass production. Human ships are usually cheaper to produce than their Orion or Citadel counterparts, and slightly easier to manufacture as well. Unlike Hivers, who use their massive numbers to crush their enemies, Humans prefer a subtler route. They customize their ship designs to combat specific enemies, and then group these complimentary designs into fleets they can send against their enemies. Humans have a very flexible grasp on technology, with solid missile, ballistic, and beam weaponry, though their knowledge of beams currently outstrips their ballistic technology. Though human ships are the most flexible in their roles, some statements are generally true of all human ships. Human STL drives are relatively slow, but they make up for this by having a limited forward profile, making their ships difficult targets. The Node Ring is their biggest weak point, as it is the largest part of the ship, and can only be armored to a certain degree before it no longer functions. Though Humans prefer to tailor their tactics specifically to their foes, if they do not have appropriate ships available or are facing an unknown enemy, they prefer to blitz. When possible, their ships drop out of Node Space as close to optimum range for their own weapons as possible, and in a place as inconvenient for their enemies as they can. They then use beam weapons like phasers and meson beams to destroy enemy turrets while their missiles and drivers tear through the enemy armor. Due to their lower durability, human ships prefer precision strikes over massed brawls like the Hivers enjoy.

Like the others, Tarkasian ships are a product of their unique, ambition-focused culture. The speed of most of their ships is only average, which is unsurprising. Though Tarkasians favor lighting fast attacks in ground combat, in space they have a more utilitarian approach. Tarkasian ships are masterfully crafted and are some of the most visually appealing in the galaxy. This masterful craft also extends into their engineering, and Tarkasian ships are designed to handle internal damage without losing functionality. Their vessels also boast a thick armored sheath that wraps around the front, sides, and top of the ship. This sheath is strongest in the front of the ship, but leaves the ship's ventral section somewhat exposed. For this reason, Tarkasian ships often fly in mirrored formations or rotated cones, with their vulnerable bottoms covered by the armored top of another ship. The superior design of Tarkasian ships also gives them a very low sensor profile, allowing them to get closer to their targets before they're spotted. Tarkasian ships mount powerful forward-facing guns, and are positively lethal in close engagements. They employ special corrosion or beam blast missiles when at range, but the main purpose of these long range weapons is to soften the enemy up before the killing close range thrust. Tarkasian tactics are based of their historical hunting tactics. Their Battle Riders and Battlecruisers attack enemy weak points and distract them while the larger dreadnoughts and heavy cruisers remain hidden by their low sensor profiles. The Riders force or lure the enemy into corrosion fields or other disadvantageous areas, and once the enemy is vulnerable the heavy ships move in for a single, devastating strike that completely destroys the enemy. In the absence of enough Riders to fully manipulate the enemy's movements and ensure a swift kill, the Tarkasian fleet often prefers human-like blitz tactics, hitting with a single powerful thrust before sliding their way along the sides of the enemy fleet with their inertia. Because their most powerful weapons and armor are forward-facing, Tarkasian ships almost always try to orient their forward sections toward the enemy when possible.

Ships of the Morrigi Confederation are something of a mystery. As they are not affiliated in any way with the Council, much of their capabilities are a mystery. But we can determine some things from the few anonymous engagements the other Orion races had with their vessels prior to First Contact, and from recordings of their anti-pirate actions. Morrigi ships seem to have above average speed and have demonstrated fantastic agility in combat. Morrigi Gravity Ships, though useful for boosting the speed of their fleets at FTL, also are capable of slowing down nearby enemy ships with powerful gravity fields, ensuring that Morrigi vessels always have the edge in movement. The strength of Morrigi armor can only be guessed at, but historically it has always been strongest in the forward, dorsal, and ventral sections, and weakest on the broadsides. This is likely still the case, as Morrigi ships are built to present a very limited side profile to enemy ships. Morrigi ships retract their weapons during FTL travel, but weapon counts in anti-pirate actions suggest they mount a disproportionate number of lighter weapons, making them much more lethal at close ranges. Their weapons are often mounted in forward turrets with overlapping arcs, allowing them to focus a great deal of fire at a single point. Despite their close range power, Morrigi vessels prefer to snipe from a distance for the majority of battle. Though they seem to have traded out their Destroyers for Riders like their Council counterparts, they support these Riders with swarms of automated drones and bizarre weaponry. A favored weapon of the Confederation is the Complex Ordinance Launcher (or COL), a powerful magnetic catapult capable of firing a payload of deactive drones, mines, or more specialized ordinance far ahead of the main fleet. COLs play a major part in the Morrigi's favorite tactic, which is known on the extranet as the Tar Pit. Morrigi ships use their COLs to drop implosion mines directly into the enemy fleet. While the enemy is mired in the gravity distortions of the implosion mines, the Morrigi drones and Riders pounce, circling around the enemy fleet to dive at targets that appear weak. The enemy is prevented from responding to the Morrigi fleet by a constant barrage of mines and other special weapons, causing them to flounder while the drones continue weakening them. When the enemy is at its weakest, the main Morrigi element swoops in like a bird of prey, focusing their fire on vulnerabilities their drones have created and crushing all remaining resistance.

As you can see, the Orion Arm has had a great deal of impact on space combat in Citadel space, and in the galaxy in general. The crushing defeats suffered by Batarian fleets in the Extermination were a clear indicator that the old ways are not enough. Citadel navies have been severely overhauled in the past decades, and more refits and new ships are drawn up every day. Only time will tell what new advancements lay in store for the future of naval combat.

_I can tell you worked hard on this paper, Aestann, and it's twice the length I requested. However, you completely disregarded the standard essay format that I assigned and went over extensively in class. This paper reads more like a collection of random ramblings and interesting facts than an ordered essay. In addition, several of the 'facts' you listed seem quite unlikely or draw unsupported conclusions, and you completely failed to cite any of your sources. On top of all that, this essay was supposed to be about the impact of the Orion Arm on your daily life. As you will not be old enough to volunteer for the navy for another year and a half, I doubt that the affect the Orion Arm has had on naval design and tactics can qualify as an impact on your daily life. I also found several grammatical and spelling mistakes. Did you even bother to proofread this? Please see me after class._


	38. Trial (Story)

_Story time again! Gunfights, psychic powers, flying armor, and more obscure cultural references than you can shake a Siege Driver at! Today Sara visits the Morrigi in that most heroic of quests: save the Maiden from the Dragons! The Morrigi have been hovering around the edges of the plot for a while now, but it's time for them to take center stage for the first time in over thirty chapters! Watch in awe of their mastery of high technology, marvel at their exotic and venerable traditions, gap in wonder at their powers of the mind, and then scoff as a single Tarka tramples over every single one of those things. _

_Dramatic intro aside, I'm pretty sure this is the longest chapter I've ever written for this story, and goes in several different directions very quickly. So I'm very interested in feedback for this chapter. Did the plot and pacing work okay? Did I focus too much on the Morrigi and not enough on the actual protagonists? Working with their glamour/empathy was very tricky, since the lore doesn't really draw a hard line between the one and the other, so I'm also interested in hearing how you all think that turned out. _

_My poll for the next Codex is still up at the top of my profile, for those of you interested in voting. Please note that since I just did the ship comparison Codex, votes for that will not be counted. Anyway, please read and review! I look forward to hearing your thoughts! I'll also translate some of those other Morrigi words for you, if you're curious._

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In retrospect, Sara thought to herself, she should have known the gods would never let her pull something like this off so smoothly. The infiltration was perfect. They'd dropped in stealth capsules during their ship's routine garbage jettison, and inserted the rest of the way with Bara'Dorn glider wings. The thick atmosphere the Morrigi preferred, alive with floating algae that turned the sky a faint green, probably wouldn't be any good for Thane's lungs, but he assured her that limited exposure wouldn't cause any serious problems for him. Liara's research camp was located at the base of a fallen Drift City, a huge collection of pyramids and shattered spires that stretched for several kilometers. Like most Morrigi gatherings, the camp was obvious from above, the well-lit tents radiating through the night in a series of connected circles. Sara had worried that the STG infiltrator cloaks she'd requisitioned from the Spectre office wouldn't be able to get them through the pickets of Morrigi sentry drones, but they'd slipped past without any difficulties. The cloaks only had enough charge for one use, but they could last for over an hour, assuming the user didn't make any violent movements. As she had crept through the darkness into Liara's tent, she'd harbored a faint hope that for once, one of her plans would go off without a hitch. That was probably what had jinxed it, she decided, just before she hit the hard stone ground and bounced, sending an explosion of pain though her body.

As her body continued to fly backward, bleeding off the momentum of Liara's biotic push, Sara decided that the asari girl was way too high strung. Admittedly, she probably shouldn't have put the gun in Liara's face when she'd woken her up, but she couldn't risk the asari making noise and warning the Morrigi. How was she supposed to know that the girl was a biotic powerhouse? And who sleeps with a pistol under their pillow anyway? People these days were just so paranoid.

"Thane," she snapped quickly, recovering her senses and rolling in midair to land in a fighting crouch. "The target has declined our invitation. Time for our contingency plan."

The drell assassin responded wordlessly, and a shimmer passed through the entrance to Liara's tent. The girl had just enough time for an alarmed shout before a rapid series of meaty impacts sounded out, and Thane emerged, his cloak dispersed and the asari girl held carefully in his arms. She was completely unconscious and wrapped in a large blanket, but apart from a small bruise forming on her face, she appeared unharmed.

"Target acquired," he reported in a whisper, nodding in her direction. "Are you and Wrex ready?"

Sara glanced down at her silver bracelet and a green icon appeared hovering over it. The sound of serpentine movement from several of the nearby tents indicated that their time was almost up. The Morrigi females around them may have been slow to wake, but once they realized they were under attack, they would come out fighting.

"Wrex is in position, and I just got telemetry on their drones," she hissed quickly. "Let's go."

Thane nodded and started running toward the perimeter with fluid grace. Sara followed, swiping a finger against her bracelet as she pulled out her rifle. A Morrigi drone swooped overhead, drawn by the commotion, and she shot it out of the sky in a single swift burst. The flechettes in her Broma Dai weren't the best choice for fighting Brawler Armor, but they made short work of the lightly armored Morrigi drones. With the flight algorithms her bracelet had just collected, she could also easily sort through their darting movement patterns, making the high-tech war machines nothing more than sitting ducks.

Responding to the destruction of one of their number, a trio of new drones darted in from the perimeter, only to be struck down by another barrage of flechettes. A confused avian head the size of Sara's torso poked its way out of the tent in front of her, causing her to drop into a roll and come up on the other side in a dead sprint.

"Wrex, things are looking a little crowded on my end," she called into her bracelet. "Can I get a distraction?"

"Thought you'd never ask, Princess," the mercenary growled, amusement evident in his tone. The krogan appeared a hundred yards to her left, a huge grin on his face and a massive weapon clutched in his hands

Getting her hands on a Shaka'sal hadn't been easy. The infamous heavy weapons were desperately hoarded by Changed Tarka, and were capable of untold levels of devastation when used properly. It was essentially a fusion between a flechette shotgun, a minigun, and an axe, and in closed spaces could clear a room faster than a plasma flamer. It had taken over three months and two of her Favors to finally get one, and even then she knew that without exoskeleton mods, she would never be strong enough to use the damn thing. But the look on Wrex's face right now made all the pain of procuring and storing the huge gun completely worth it.

"Alright birdies!" he yelled, leveling the Shaka'sal. "My name is Urdnot Wrex, and THIS is my BOOMSTICK!"

He followed this statement by opening up on full auto, blazing away indiscriminately with his new toy. Sara had asked him to try and avoid fatalities, but even a near miss from a Shaka'sal could be lethal to more fragile races. Morrigi females grew big though, so she wasn't too worried. Besides, diplomacy was the Council's problem. She intended to be long gone before the Morrigi started counting their dead.

The alarm was definitely up now. Electronic lights and flares began blazing red atop the many Morrigi tents, and the huge females were burrowing out of their canvas dens like startled serpents. She felt a wave of dread crash over her, even as she shot down another flock of drones. This would never work. The females were too big, even with the Shaka'sal, Wrex would be swarmed under, the drones were coming faster and faster and-

It wasn't real, a corner of her mind realized. The panic was false, a projection. The knowledge didn't make the terror lessen any, but if she focused on the fact that it wasn't really her fear, she could bring herself to fight through it. Quietly, she thanked any gods that were listening for the cybernetic spikes running through her brain. 'Permanent cognitive damage' be damned, the extra psionic resistance they provided was invaluable. Besides, she didn't even know what her Thalamus was, so it couldn't have been that important.

Glancing at her companions as she continued weaving toward open ground, Sara saw that they weren't doing so well. Thane's black eyes had gone wide and were darting franticly around as his graceful stride faltered and he nearly stumbled. Wrex was faring a little better, but from his bloodshot expression she suspected he was close to Blood Rage. That would be disastrous. They had to leave before any males showed up, or they'd never be able to extract themselves. A berserk krogan would be a nightmare to pull from battle, and if he was captured Sara had no doubt he'd spill everything he knew in a second to save himself.

Wrex first, she decided . Thane's fear was still productive, driving him away from the psionic Morrigi females. But how to get through to the krogan? Like most female Tarka in the military, she'd been trained how to deal with Changed Males in battle, so she knew how to guide their adrenaline fueled rage to a productive end. A krogan couldn't be that different.

"Hey!" she yelled into her communicator even as she weaved around some form of portable sensor platform. The first step in stopping the rage was always to get their attention. "Wrex, you've got incoming ordinance. Fall back twenty meters and get out of their line of sight for a second!"

That should do it. The threat of a non-existent artillery strike would give him something to focus on, and Morrigi empathy was mostly visual. Looking away for a bit would help calm him down and keep his adrenaline manageable.

"You never said anything about ordinance," Wrex snapped angrily, even as he fired a suppressing volley and began dashing backward. He chuckled darkly. "I think that's worth a bonus."

"Is now really the best time to talk about money?" Sara asked ruefully, but inwardly she was rather pleased with herself. If he was haggling over fees, the Rage must already be calming down. A purple dart of light flashed through the air over her shoulder, forcing her thoughts back to their escape. She pulverized the offending drone, and shifted her attention to her other companion. "Thane, you're drifting too far to the left. You'll be in rough terrain in a few seconds."

"Right, sorry," he responded, sounding a little shaken and distracted. But as he started coming back to their planned route, Sara saw that some of his usual grace had begun to return. "I should be out of the camp in ten seconds."

Their escape plan was very simple. As an ordinary archeological site, the camp didn't have too many drones protecting it. Sara suspected she'd already destroyed most of them. Morrigi women were forbidden by sacred law from engaging in war, so they wouldn't have anything more deadly than basic hunting weapons to scare away animals. If they could get out of the camp and hidden before any males arrived overhead, they'd be home free.

But the gods, as usual, had a sense of humor. No sooner had Thane finished his estimate than a Morrigi female tore around the edge of a nearby tent, planting herself directly into their path. Blocked, the assassin was forced to slide to a halt, and Sara followed suit a dozen meters behind him. Even as Sara's eyes took in the creature's bulk, a feeling of utter horror hit her like an avalanche, washing instantly into every part of her mind.

The tiny, analytical corner of her brain reminded her that Morrigi females rarely stood taller than three meters, but that part was drowned out by the sheer enormity of what stood before her. To Sara's fear-soaked brain, the Morrigi was two or three times that size, her eyes seeming to blaze red with hate. Her pale wings blotted out the night sky, and her talons flashed like swords. This was no creature of flesh and blood, Sara decided. This was Var Ponu, Old Man Death, made incarnate in the most terrifying form imaginable. The demon the Morrigi had become screamed, a piercing war cry that seemed to split the air itself with its intensity, and suddenly Sara's world was filled with fire.

It's just a helmet flamer, reminded her thoughts. They're low powered and shorted ranged. They clip to the side of their beaks, and Morrigi use them to clear brush. She's not really breathing fire. It's all just because of that empathic attack. Her eyes aren't glowing, or even red. She's not really that big. It's an illusion.

But this time logic was not enough. The fear was too great. Even as she frantically tried to get herself under control, firing a burst from her rifle that went hopelessly wide, the Morrigi lowered her snapping beak and charged, spewing fire the whole way.

Training and adrenaline did what reason could not. By pure reflex, Sara threw herself out of the way. It was an ugly dodge, one that landed her in an ungainly heap off to one side, but it let her avoid the flames and the female's crushing bulk. Her towering foe seemed to have lost track of her in the confusion of the charge, but now the Morrigi turned her head toward where Sara lay prone, flames licking up around her jaws once again.

Shoot, you idiot, her common sense reminded her, and Sara realized that she had landed with her gun pointed up at the Morrigi almost by accident. At this range, she couldn't possibly miss, no matter how badly her hands shook. Her grip steadied, and hope burned in her chest even as her finger tightened on the trigger. She glared up at her enemy with a defiant smirk, just in time to see exactly how much fate hated her.

The sky was glowing with a fire all its own, the clouds themselves radiating some shining inner light. Then, with a crack of impossibly loud thunder, the heavens split, clouds thrown aside in a shockwave as a trio of avenging gods descended from on high. Their armor shone gold and silver and cast its own pure radiance that burned her eyes to even look at. One carried a brilliant spear, another two held elegant rifles. As they hovered over the camp, drones swiftly detaching from their bodies to swirl around them in an elegant dance, Sara felt the last of her hopes die. None of them were ever leaving the camp alive.

The female seemed to be as distracted by the sudden entrance of the Morrigi males (which is what these 'gods' really were, Sara's brain reminded her) as Sara was, completely ignoring the prone Tarka before her. The intense terror subsided somewhat, and Sara seized her chance. She pulled one of her Maab daggers from her belt and lunged upward. It was a clumsy thrust, but it still worked. The female stiffened as the electrical current raced up her nervous system, paralyzing her. The horrible, crushing terror let up, and for the first time since the gray feathered Morrigi had appeared, Sara could think clearly again.

She rolled into a crouch and surveyed the battlefield. The prognosis was definitely grim. Thane had taken the full force of the female's psychic attack and unlike Sara, he had no cybernetic enhancements to soften the blow. The shock appeared to have been too much for his brain to handle, and the assassin lay collapsed in a heap, completely unconscious. Liara's body was beside him, equally unconscious, which was good at least.

Wrex wasn't doing any better. Several of the other females appeared to have donned flamer helms as well and had trapped him inside a box of fire. Above, the drones the males had brought swirled out of the sky, stabbing at the krogan with UV lasers. He was deep in the Blood Rage now, shrugging off laser blasts with ease and blazing recklessly away into the sky with the Shaka'sal. His deep, amused laughter rolled across the battlefield as he swatted first one, then another drone from the sky, but Sara could see what he couldn't. The two males with rifles were already taking careful aim, and without the terror to cloud her judgment, she was almost sure at least one of them was wielding a meson rifle. Those things packed more punch than a damn fusion gun. The third Morrigi had flown away at high speed and was banking around to start a textbook strafing run.

As Sara watched, Wrex's gun finally clicked dry. Instead of reloading, the fear-fogged krogan responded instinctually: he brandished the Shaka'sal's melee blade, lowered his head, and charged straight into the wall of flames. Even with half his armor on fire and barraged by laser fire from all sides, Wrex never slowed, slashing and hacking the air to cleave opponents only he could see. The meson rifles above him had started glowing, indicating that they were about to fire. Sara saw hidden panels slide open on the third Morrigi's approaching armor, revealing racks of micromissiles.

There was no way the mercenary could survive all that, even with the Blood Rage fueling him. She might be able to shoot down one of the males before he could fire, but that would only prolong the inevitable. Even if she could kill every single Morrigi here, more were surely on their way. They'd never get off the planet alive. There was only one option left.

"Athlos!" Sara yelled, throwing down her gun and pressing her bracelet to transmit to every open channel. "I request athlos!"

The whole camp froze. She could feel over a dozen alien eyes on her, and the sudden silence was broken only by the crackle of the nearby flames. Wrex, freed from the numerous fear attacks he had suffered under, visibly slumped, but then stood in a guarded crouch, glancing around warily. She could tell the Rage was still in him, but fortunately the confusion of his recent psychic shock was holding him at bay.

Finally, the tension was broken when the spear-wielder rolled in the air, diving downward to hover directly in front of her. A brilliant light still shown behind him (Glamour, her logic reminded), and his mighty wings stretched to their fullest extent. Unlike human or turian flight packs, the Morrigi's armor had no visible jets or audible roar of engines. It just flew, hovering in the air in a way that indicated gravity was more of a suggestion than a universal law. The male's shining spear slashed downward dramatically, stopping inches from her face.

"You creep onto our worlds and attack our women in the night, yet you have the gall to request athlos?" the Morrigi crowed, its raspy voice vibrating the ground with every word. Sara shrugged it off. With the amount of psychic nonsense she'd faced in the last few minutes, a cheap trick like that barely fazed her.

"Yes, I do," she replied simply. "Are you the khan?"

"My name is Kroneos the Swift. And yes, I am the zo'khan," the male replied, with some mild amusement at her stern tone. He flew lower, hovering just inches off the ground in front of her to dip his huge head down, looking her in the eyes. "So what is that to you, dustling?"

Making sure to show absolutely no fear whatsoever, she reached forward and gently placed a hand on the underside of the Morrigi's helmet, specifically where the bottom of his beak would be. The reaction from the others was instantaneous as the gathered females bristled their feathers and lashed their tails. The other two hovering males flexed their armored wings and craned their long necks, as if trying to get a better view. For a long moment, there was nothing but stunned silence. Then Kroneos began to laugh.

"You are well educated for a dustling, I will give you that much," he cackled, raising his head again. "Very well, little sarkanai. I will grant you athlos. But should any of these women have suffered harm, you may wish I had not."

The khan turned away, but Sara did not relax. That was the easy part. What followed would be much more difficult.

"The men may have granted you a chance for forgiveness, bitch, but we haven't," hissed the harsh voice of the gray Morrigi woman behind her. "You are on our land, not on their ships. I am called Iambe. Remember that name, for if Kroneos does not kill you, then I shall. The mercy of our males will not save you from facing justice for your blasphemy."

"That is not for you to decide. I am a legitimate athligi. Touch me and you will be the blasphemer," Sara reminded impudently. The scorches on her arms from that Crow's flamer had begun to really hurt, so she wasn't really inclined to be polite. Smirking, she decided to twist the knife just a little more. "And I think you're getting close enough to that line already, aren't you harpeizanae?"

Iambe's eyes widened as she registered the insult, and she surged forward, screaming in rage. Sara had a split second to wonder if she hadn't made a mistake in pushing the woman as Iambe's razor sharp claws slashed toward her face, and then the blow was stopped in a rush of wind and sleek metal.

"Calm yourself, daimae," said a new male. He hovered just off the ground, his armored hand still straining against the power of Iambe's strike, but his armor shone even brighter than Kroneos' had. Instead of its usual appearance, now he looked like a handsome Tarka youth, clad in the finest armor of the Silver Imperium. "Kroneos is wise and just. The intruders will face justice. And as for you, dustling, if I ever hear you use that word in my presence again, no amount of sacred law will keep me from killing you where you stand."

Sara just rolled her eyes, but her Morrigi rival seemed quite pleased with the male's intervention.

"Daimae? You flatter me," Iambe said, looking the male up and down. "Your glamour is quite excellent. I almost couldn't see through it."

"Now who is flattering? My companions and I were just in the midst of our Descent when we saw your distress lights and redirected to aid you. I am named Atreus the Zealous. You know, when this matter is settled, I have some interesting trinkets I could show you. My tribe has travelled extensively through the Attican Traverse, and I have collected many unique souvenirs."

"Oh gag me with a vibro knife," Sara muttered, turning away. "They're flirting."

"Okay, what the hell was all that?" Wrex asked, limping through the tents toward her. The third Morrigi and his drones hovered overhead, his gun not actually pointed at them but held ready, just in case. The krogan's armor was covered in scorch marks and laser burns, and half his face was concealed by a thick coating of medigel.

"Short version? Plans A, B, C, D, and E all went down the tubes. So I'm skipping straight to Emergency Plan Y."

"Heh. If that doesn't work?"

"Then we go to Emergency Plan Z, which is to beg shamelessly for our lives and hope they don't want the heat they'd get for killing a Spectre."

"Think that'll work?"

"Please. The Council would declare me rogue and deny this operation in a second."

"So what comes after Plan Z?"

"Then we jump to Plan Omega: pray for divine intervention."

"Heh! I like you, Princess!" Wrex laughed, and winced slightly when it caused him pain. "Still gonna want that bonus if we get out of here alive, though."

"Chiseler."

"You bet."

"Athligi!" Kroneos called, floating back over to them with a light brown female in tow. "This is Phosphora Sopheia, the most worthy among these women. For the crime of attacking them, you must answer me. But for the crime of trespassing on one of their holy places, you must answer to her."

"That is not the extent of this sarkanai's crimes," Iambe added venomously. "She harmed Phosphora Liara, and attempted to kidnap her."

"Is this true?" Sopheia asked, her eyes beginning to glow. Sara felt the terror beginning to set in again, and mentally braced herself against it. "Have you brought harm to our guest?"

"Guests are allowed to leave," she snapped angrily, using defiance to overcome the fear. "Liara will be fine. My subordinate knew what he was doing."

"We shall see," Kroneos stated, and a small metal ball flew out of his armor to hover near his head. "This is a medical drone. It will seek out your Liara and assess the extent of her injuries."

"It won't have to look far," she replied sarcastically, pointing over her shoulder. "She's right there."

The drone immediately surged forward, circling around the fallen asari and bathing her with scanners. After a moment, it zipped directly in front of her face, and fired a single small bolt of electricity at her nose. Liara immediately jolted awake, eyes wide and expression panicked.

"That was easy," stated Sara. "As long as your 'bot is over there, could it take a look at my friend? Iambe here messed the poor guy up pretty bad when she attacked us."

"You would have us treat a thief and kidnapper over our own sisters?" Iambe growled, but a glance from Sopheia silenced her.

"If possible, I would like to avoid any pointless loss of life," the older female said calmly. "Kroneos, if I might request, please allow your drone to scan the intruder. I would not wish him to perish before he has a chance to face judgment."

The male nodded, and the small drone began vigorously scanning the fallen Drell as Liara stumbled toward the group in a daze.

"Iambe, is that you? What's going on? I was asleep and-" Liara caught sight of Sara's face, and realization suddenly dawned. "And then she attacked me!"

"I was trying to rescue you, you idiot!" Sara exploded, eyes flashing red in annoyance. "Something's come up. We need you back on the Citadel. I've been trying to get a message through to you for weeks now, but they were always rejected due to 'electrical interference.'"

She glared suspiciously at the assembled Morrigi, who at least had the decency to feign confusion.

"Phosphora, what is she talking about?" Iambe asked, perplexed. "We've had nothing but light rain for the past month."

"There is a large nebula between here and the nearest Relay," Kroneos theorized. "It is possible the interference was located there, and not on the planet itself."

"See, I might believe that, if my last message hadn't been sent twelve hours ago, from the edge of this very system," snapped Sara angrily. "I don't know what games you Crows are playing, but trust me, if there was an easier way to get Liara out, I wouldn't have come in guns blazing."

"But I'm just an archeologist," the asari said, confused. "Why would they need me on the Citadel?"

"I'm sorry, I can't discuss that in front of these people. It's classified."

"But I'm an archeologist! I'm not even a very good one! Have you seen some of the responses to my last paper? Why would they need someone like me for a classified project? Besides, the Citadel's been fully explored for centuries. Why would you want to take me there?"

"Liara speaks correctly," Sopheia agreed. "You have brought no proof to validate your story, which has many logical holes. I'm afraid we cannot allow her to leave with you."

"You want proof?" Sara pressed her bracelet, which immediately flashed a long, multidigit code. "There's your proof."

"Spectre authorization acknowledged," Liara's omnitool chimed automatically, recognizing the code without needing any input from its user. "Identity is confirmed as Sara Thok'Dur, Special Tactics and Reconnaissance."

"Your authority means little here, Spectre," reminded the khan. "But if Liara wishes to go with you, I believe it would be unjust to stop her. Do you agree, Phosphora?"

"I do," she said with a nod. "Very well. In light of this new evidence and your good intentions, I absolve you of the crime of trespassing. Liara, you are by no means required to go with this woman. If you choose, you may remain here with us. As a guest of the Morrigi, we will defend you with our very lives, if that is what is required."

"Phosphora, thank you. You have no idea how much that means to me," Liara began, before looking nervously to Sara. "But my people must really need me if they sent a Spectre to get me. I'm sorry, but I have to go."

"As you wish." Sopheia bowed her head solemnly. "You will be missed, Phosphora Liara."

"Well, if you're planning on coming with us, you might want to grab a blanket or something so you don't freeze," Sara pointed out wryly. The girl was wearing a veorashi, a traditional form of asari clothing made up of several intricately draped and tied pieces of fabric. It was often used as sleep attire, so she wasn't really surprised to see Liara in one, but as elegant as it might be a veorashi didn't really leave much to the imagination.

The asari girl glanced down at herself and promptly turned an amusing shade of purple, before quickly darting off to grab her fallen blanket, stammering muttered apologies the whole way. Sara had to stop herself from laughing out loud as she watched the scantily-clad asari go. Her reaction had been everything the Tarkasian Spectre had been hoping for. Wrex, naturally, was less restrained.

"You're a bad, bad woman," he chuckled as he watched Liara frantically try to grab the fallen blanket, only to drop it in her nervous haste. "I knew I liked you."

"We all have hobbies," she muttered back quietly. "Mine is taunting people who are wound way too tight, like our poor lost lamb over there."

As Liara frantically tried (and failed) to tie the blanket into a makeshift covering, Kroneos's medical drone zipped past her to dance urgently around its master's head. He grabbed it in one six-fingered hand, examining it closely.

"It would appear your companion suffered severe psychic shock," he explained seriously. "The heavy atmosphere was exacerbating an existing breathing condition he has. When our young daimae's empathic attack hit him, he began hyperventilating and passed out from lack of oxygen. He should awaken on his own in an hour or so, when his mind has had time to recover slightly from the shock."

"Well, that's good," Sara said with a satisfied nod.

"Not really," Kroneos replied. "He was hit by a very powerful mental attack. That can have severe side effects if not properly treated."

"Like what, exactly?"

"The most common symptoms of this kind of trauma are similar to those exhibited by individuals exposed to heavy combat in stressful environments. Flashbacks, negative emotional spikes, that sort of thing. In particularly bad cases, it can cause permanent feelings of fear or hatred toward anything similar to the creature that inflicted the trauma. But the main problem is that he's a drell."

"So?"

"Drell have eidetic memories, and naturally have vivid flashes back to powerful emotional events. Which in this case…"

"You mean that if we don't treat this, Thane is going to be reliving that attack on and off for the rest of his life?" she asked, shocked. Normally, she defaulted to the 'buck up and get over it' solution to mental trauma. They were just memories, no matter how vivid. But with Thane's medical condition, a sudden panic attack like that could kill him in a few years. It would certainly mean he'd never work as an assassin again. A tiny part of her mind wondered why she even cared, he was just hired muscle after all, but her honor refused to let this go. She got him in, she was going to get him out. "Fine. Can one of you treat him?"

"I doubt there is anyone on this planet who could permanently treat trauma like that," he replied. "The best we would be able to offer would be temporary empathic salves, and in time that would do as much damage as the original trauma. But the Liir may be able to assist you, if you dare entrust your friend to one of their pet mind rippers."

Sara frowned darkly.

"We'll take it as it comes," she decided. "It's a long trip back. We'll have plenty of time to think about it."

Kroneos nodded and turned away, speaking quietly to Sopheia and sending his drone zipping off toward the rest of the camp. Most of the fires had died away, and the lights on top of the surviving tents had shifted from bright red back to their normal pure white. Atreus had once again distracted Iambe with his attempts to woo her, so Sara took the time to deploy a pack of medigel over some of the scrapes and burns she'd acquired during their failed escape.

"So what the heck are all these birds talking about, anyway?" Wrex asked gruffly, eyeing them with suspicion. "My translator can't make out half the words they're using most of the time."

"The Morrigi aren't directly associated with the Council. We've tried, but the bastards really chisel you for complete translation programs of all their languages. So most translators just do the basics of their Trade Language and let you sort out cultural words from context," explained Sara. "Ranger training includes a crash course in xenoculture and linguistics, so I've got a lot of it memorized."

"Alright then. What the hell is a daimae?"

"It means 'Terrifying One'. It's both a compliment and a title given to females with a very potent terror attack. Judging by the number she did on me and Thane, I'd say she's earned it."

"And that phoso-whatever?"

"Phosphora," Liara answered, walking up behind them. She had finally managed to tie the blanket into something resembling an improvised toga, and a bit of her nervousness seemed to have retreated now that they were talking about an academic subject. Sara wondered idly if she could undo the knot holding the blanket up without the asari realizing. "It's a Morrigi word for scientists. Taken literally, it means Light-bringer. They use it like we would use the title 'Doctor'. Technically, everyone here could probably be addressed as phosphora, but since Sopheia is the most worthy, we usually just call her megale, 'Greater-Than-I'."

"Oh? What's she done that's so special?" the krogan scoffed.

"Morrigi select their rulers based on a complex system that revolves around the concept of aanigi'dha. There's no really good non-Morrigi word for it, but taken loosely it means 'worthiness to lead'. Aanigi'dha is so deeply engrained in the Morrigi that they don't even have a normal system of rank, they just automatically know who is worthiest. What constitutes aanigi'dha varies in different professions and-I'm boring you, aren't I?"

"What gave you the first hint?" Wrex asked sarcastically, frowning in annoyance.

"I'm sorry. I've been living with the Morrigi for a while now, and I just find their culture so fascinating!" she babbled excitedly. "It is more complex and ancient than any other I've encountered, and their records are much more complete than those of the Protheans. I mean, I know the official histories say that the Morrigi and Asari probably started exploring space at around the same time, but based off some of the things we've uncovered, I think the Morrigi might predate the Asari by a millennia or more. Some of these-I'm doing it again. I'm sorry."

"I appreciate the cultural lesson, kid, but it's really been a long night," Sara stated wearily. "I'm sure the Crows are fascinating, but all I want to do right now is get the hell off this rock and back to Council space. You can talk our brains to mush as much as you want on the ride home."

"Not mine she can't," Wrex grumbled. "Our contract says I have to help you get her to the Citadel in one peace, it never said I can't tape her mouth shut."

"I understand," Liara replied with a stiff nod. "I'm sorry. I'll try to…stay out of your way."

"You do that," he snapped, even as Sopheia and Kroneos returned. Sara usually had a hard time reading Morrigi moods (their eyes didn't normally change color, and those beaks were useless for facial expressions), but even she could tell they looked grim.

"Before we proceed, Phosphora, I have a request to make of you," Kroneos said, loud enough to be heard by everyone. "My tribesmen and I were given permission to Descend by the kthonia, but we diverted from our original flight path when we saw your distress lights. As such, we have not been given formal permission to set foot on your soil. Phosphora Sopheia, as the most worthy among this gathering, it would do my tribesmen and I great honor if you would allow us to land in this most wondrous nest you and your fellows have crafted."

"Worthy nest?" Wrex grumbled. "It's a bunch of-"

"Shh!" Liara whispered angrily. "It's the completion of a formal ritual of Descent. The men own the stars, the women own the planets. So the men can't land without the permission of the kthonia, 'she who owns the land'. Technically they already have permission, but still it's considered very rude to touch the ground without directly asking a female first."

"That's the stupidest-"

"Shh!"

"You and your kin have performed your duties most excellently, Khan. Through your intervention, many lives may have been saved," Sopheia intoned, her pose one of great formality. "It is our great honor to host such worthy Travelers. Please, be welcome on our soil."

In unison, the three hovering males dropped like stones, landing gracefully with the bang of metal on stone. They bowed respectfully to Sopheia, before swiveling their gazes back to the trio of aliens.

"Now that the formalities have been concluded, there is one last piece of business we must attend to," Kroneos said seriously, the magnificent glow his armored form always seemed to project intensifying as he spoke. "Athligi, step forward!"

Sara did as she was requested, resting a hand impudently on her lightning blade as she did. The Morrigi would burn her down in a second if she actually tried to draw it, of course, but if they wanted to play head games with their witch powers, she would play right back.

"What, athligi?" Liara asked Sara, confused. "You invoked athlos? Are you insane?"

"Your sympathy for her says much for your character, Liara, but it has already been invoked," she heard Sopheia chide as the Morrigi leader twisted her serpentine body through the tents and gathered females to stand next to the asari girl. "It is not our place to interfere, any more than it would be Kroneos' place to tell a technea how she should wield her tools."

"The hell are you all talking about?" Wrex snapped angrily. Kroneos was addressing the crowd now, but Sara ignored him to focus on the conversation behind her instead. "What's going on?"

"Your friend has invoked athlos, the Morrigi ritual of atonement. It's like a form of trial by ordeal. As the khan, Kroneos gets to pick a challenge, and if she passes, she's instantly forgiven for her crimes," Liara explained in a whisper. "But it's fantastically dangerous! The challenge can be anything, even stuff that's impossible or suicidal. He could make her blow her brains out if he wanted!"

"Oh? And what happens to me and the lightweight over there if she dies?" the krogan asked shrewdly, gesturing to where Thane lay unconscious.

"You were mercenaries, hired by the Spectre?" Sopheia asked.

"Damn right. And I definitely didn't get paid enough to put up with all this crap."

"As mercenaries, you are extensions of her will," the Morrigi female concluded, ignoring his disdain. "For the purpose of the test, you and she are the same entity. If she is guilty, you are. If she is not, you are not."

"You didn't answer my question," Wrex growled, tone turning slightly threatening. "What. Happens."

"That is for the khan to decide. Likely, you will be killed," she said with a dismissive shrug. "Or perhaps you will be given to us as a gift. Indentured servants are quite useful for agriculture and other menial tasks."

"Over my dead body."

"Yes, I suspect that is how it would play out," she said with finality before turning back to where Kroneos continued to address the crowd.

"As no one has stepped forward to speak in defense of the athligi, I will now set her trial," he announced, before turning to regard Sara intensely. When he continued, it was in a much more conversational tone. "You are fortunate. None of the females suffered permanent damage in your reckless attack. Even the most gravely injured are expected to recover, with treatment. Had this not been the case, I would take you back to the stars in my armor and we would see if sarkanai can fly without wings."

"You'd be surprised," Sara replied cheekily. "We're quite resourceful."

"I have no doubt," he replied, his tone again one of amusement. "So, what challenge would be appropriate for such a 'resourceful' dustling as you?"

"Zo'khan, I have a suggestion," Atreus called, stepping away from his place beside Iambe and walking forward. His glamour was as brilliant as ever, and even knowing better Sara was slightly in awe of him despite herself. Stupid empathy. She'd almost rather deal with the damn witch whales. "The dust crawler came seeking a fight, did she not? We should oblige her!"

That was most definitely not why she had come, but Sara kept her mouth shut. A trial by combat really would be the best possible outcome, and she didn't want to mess it up by provoking them into giving her a challenge that would be completely suicidal. The three males were still wearing their Ascension Armor, which meant she could probably take at least two of them without a problem if they let her use her weapons. Ascension Armor was for travel, not combat, so it didn't have much in the way of weapon mounts or armor.

"You think we should duel the athligi?" Kroneos asked, never losing his tone of enjoyment. "Will the wrath of three of the Starborn be enough to cleanse her of her sins?"

"Three? One should be more than sufficient," Atreus boasted. "With your permission, Khan, I would face the sarkanai alone."

"Would you now?" the other male chuckled. "Very well, Atreus. You shall have your wish. Athligi, behold your trial: defeat this man in single combat, and all will be forgiven. You and yours will fly free."

"Simple enough," Sara said cockily. "Will I be allowed weapons?"

The males looked at her as though she had grown an extra head.

"Of course," he answered, and sounded almost insulted. "We are not barbarians, dustling. Naturally you both will be allowed to use weapons and armor."

"Wait, Khan," interjected her challenger. "Perhaps she is right. It would hardly be fair to expect her primitive weapon to compete with mine. She has brought a sword. If you would but loan me your Starlance, we could settle this in the manner of her simple kind: with blades."

Sara could not see his face behind the concealment of his glorious helm, but as Kroneos turned to glace carefully at her, she could tell he was thinking the matter over carefully. Finally, he nodded.

"Very well." He walked up to his subordinate and presented his spear. Atreus grasped it eagerly, regarding the long, forked blades at the tip with open avarice. "The challenge is set. Athligi, you shall duel this Traveler, to the death or until one of you submits. You are permitted to use any melee weapon you would like."

"In that case, I'd like his," she quipped instantly, bringing cackling laughter from a few of the watching females.

"You may only use your own weapons," Kroneos corrected, but he sounded amused again. "We have given you a chance for atonement. Do not expect us to arm you as well."

"It was worth a shot."

"Perhaps it was," the Morrigi agreed, and gestured. The females began shifting, slithering away from Sara and her opponent. Soon, a large empty space had been cleared from them to fight in. "When I tell you to begin, the trial will commence, and will not cease until you have completed it, for good or ill. Have either of you any final words?"

"I dedicate this battle to you, daimea," Atreus proclaimed, saluting her with his spear. She bowed her head politely in response. "This alien will pay for daring to attack you."

"A worthy cause for battle, if there ever was one," Kroneos commented, before turning to Sara. "And you?"

"Yeah. If I die, don't tell my mother," Sara said, pulling out her sword with a grin. "She'd never forgive me for losing a fight with an overgrown feasting bird."

"Well, you certainly don't lack for confidence," he said with a laugh, before turning away to join the ring of females. "The time for speech has ended. May your ancestors watch over both of you, and show you the path to victory. The trial has begun!"

Atreus instantly threw himself upward, soaring easily through the air with the weightless grace she'd come to expect from his kind. This wasn't surprising, as she'd already noticed his leg muscles bunching as he'd braced for the first jump. His glamour was almost overpowering, making it very difficult to figure out where the illusion ended and the flesh began, but with her cybernetic spikes, she could make a good guess.

"Foolish dustling!" he crowed, looping leisurely overhead. "You forgot that flight was not forbidden in the terms of our duel! I wonder, will that crude collection of plates you call armor let you soar as I do?"

"Why would it need to?" she replied, walking to the center of their area and carefully grasping her blade. "I can kill you just fine from where I am."

"Hah! You would dare face a master of the skies with your belly in the dust?" he scoffed. "Allow me to show you the true hopelessness of your position!"

He swooped overhead, and Sara barely had time to react. He was fast, much faster than she had anticipated. She rolled away, but his starlance clipped her shoulder as she did. The plasma-charged blade threw her to the ground and melted the metal plates almost instantly. The thick weave below absorbed the rest of the hit, but from Atreus' cackling, she doubted the blow had been intended to seriously hurt her anyway.

"Now do you see?" he rasped, orbiting above her in a casual arc. "My reach is superior, my position unassailable! You may slash at me with your crackling sword all you wish, but you will never reach me! Run and roll through the dirt until you collapse, but sooner or later you will falter and then you will be mine!"

He wasn't exactly wrong, Sara conceded. With his superior size and the reach that spear gave him, he could probably hover out of her reach for as long as he wanted and stab down with virtual impunity. She would tire long before he would, and that glamour made it almost impossible to be completely sure where the real strikes were coming from. She considered trying to taunt his pride to force him to land, but the Morrigi idea of honor was too close to the Tarkasian one for that to work. A Turian or Human might fall for it, but their idea of honorable battle was completely insane. A clean kill without risk was much more admirable than foolishly exposing yourself to harm out of a misguided desire for 'fairness'. No, it seemed her best hope of victory would be in a gamble.

"I'll give you one chance!" she yelled up to him. "Surrender now, and we both walk away!"

"You dare ask ME to surrender? Wretched lizard, my people were great when yours were still carving weapons from rocks!"

"In that case, come on down," Sara taunted with a smile. "I've got a rock I'd like to show you."

He took the bait, curling into a sudden dive with that same incredible speed. It was a shallow dive, he wasn't foolish enough to let her attack directly, but it brought him close enough for her to try a different tactic. Grabbing her sword in both hands, she swung it over her head in a vicious arc and hurled it directly into the falling Morrigi's chest.

It was a reckless tactic, and if she'd tried it during her training her weapon master would have beaten her unconscious for even thinking of using it. Swords were not meant for throwing, and if it hit at even a shallow angle, Atreus would escape with nothing but a shallow scrape. She'd be unarmed and out of position, and he'd certainly impale her. But experience had taught her things her weapon master never had, and one of those lessons was this: sometimes, the long shot was the only shot you had.

Sara's sword, three feet of adamantium alive with arcing electricity, hit Atreus point first. In an instant, his glamour vanished as the chestplate of his Ascension Armor parted with a scream, and the sword's full charge dumped straight into his body. The Morrigi dropped like a stone, smashing hard into the rocky ground to land senselessly at her feet. With a single kick she rolled his huge body onto its back and planted a boot on his chest. She grabbed the hilt of her sword and twisted, just a little, causing him to groan in pain.

"Who's in the dust now?" she asked rhetorically, putting both hands on her blade. "I don't have to spare you. I don't really want to, either. But you aren't worth the earful I'd get from the Council if I killed one of you witch birds in cold blood. So you get another chance. Just one. Yield, right now, and you walk away. Otherwise, I'll nail your feathery ass to the ground and the Council will just have to get over it."

"I submit," the beaten Morrigi gasped, limbs still twitching from the earlier electrical attack. "You have humbled me, sarkanai."

"The trial is concluded!" Kroneos announced, prompting a flutter of wings and a lashing of tails from the gathered females. Sara wasn't sure if they were pleased or angry, but she knew she didn't care. In one move she yanked her blade from the fallen warrior and walked over to a nearby tent to clean it.

"That was…spectacular!" Liara exclaimed, hurrying over with Wrex in tow. "I'm glad you didn't kill him, though. This was all a misunderstanding, it would be horrible if someone died over it."

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure getting impaled by a feathery egotist would probably count as horrible," Sara replied darkly. Before she could say more, Kroneos wound his way over, followed by Sophiea. Iambe was tending to her fallen boy-toy, she noted wearily. Heh. He gets his ass kicked and still gets the girl? Go figure.

"Well fought," the khan stated, scooping up his starlance from where it had fallen. "Atreus is clever and gifted, but he is also young and arrogant. Hopefully, this defeat will teach him some humility. It is not wise to underestimate the younger races."

"If it hasn't, he's welcome to look me up for Round Two," she answered, sliding her sword back into its sheath. "Can't guarantee I'll be as nice about it the second time around though."

"I doubt that will be necessary," Kroneos said jovially. "You came with the Salarian courier vessel that arrived yesterday, did you not?"

"Yeah, that one's ours," Sara agreed, rolling her injured shoulder to try and lessen the growing ache inside it. Strictly speaking, she probably shouldn't be giving away information like that, but screw it. The Morrigi knew everything else anyway.

"Excellent. I assume it has a shuttle that can pick you up?"

She nodded wearily. Her head throbbed from the effort of dealing with the numerous glamours and empathic attacks, and all she really wanted now was a full meal and a twelve hour nap.

"I'm sure your business is important. We would not want to detain you any further." Kroneos said, and Sara felt her body flood with warm, welcome feelings. She smashed them down ruthlessly. Even now she couldn't get away from their damn witch powers. "Please, summon your craft. I will arrange a decent corridor."

The armored Morrigi swept away, twisting gracefully around the larger females. As he left, Sara heard Wrex snort.

"That was way too easy," he growled quietly. "That khan guy set you up."

"Of course he did," Sara agreed. "I doubt that kid had ever seen real combat. He'd have never had a chance against an ordinary Ranger, much less a Spectre. Kroneos knew that. If he'd really wanted me to lose, the fight would have been three against one and they'd have just sniped me to death from a few kilometers away."

"So first they spend all that time trying to keep this Liara girl, then they just let us take her with barely a fight?" Wrex rumbled, his battered face scrunching into a painful-looking frown. The asari seemed offended by his dismissive reference to her, but his angry expression seemed to cause her to think better of actually speaking against him. "Something's not right, Princess. They're up to something."

"They're Crows," Sara retorted scornfully. "They're always up to something. And I am officially out of patience for their bullshit. Come on, let's grab Thane. As soon as that shuttle gets here, we're off this rock. At this point, I think it's safe to say that everything that can go wrong officially has."

It wasn't until the next morning, when the flashing Emergency ALERT message sprang up on her terminal, that Sara learned how dangerous it was to tempt the gods like that.


	39. Abruda Handbook Bonus Appendix (Codex)

_Ugh, this was going to be longer, but the site is being a pain in my ass. Short version: guns win! Yay guns. Read, review, keep the peace, try not to torch anything with your new laser guns. As usual, questions/concerns will be answered if left as PMs or Reviews. _

* * *

_We here at Abruda Handbooks have always defined ourselves as the definitive publication for open source military data throughout the known galaxy. As some of our dedicated asari readers no doubt recall, several decades ago we switched from a triannual publication schedule to an annual one, specifically to keep pace with the rapid advancements made possible by the Orion Arm. However, recent years have seen an unprecedented number of new technologies unveiled, to the point that our research and publishing process is unable to keep pace with them all. Therefore, we are releasing this article to the extranet for free to help cover some of the most recent technological breakthroughs. Though it is intended as an additional appendix for the Abruda Galactic Weapons Handbook, it is written as a standalone article to prevent confusion for readers who are not familiar with our usual Handbook format. Due to the advanced nature of most of these weapons, we have only the most basic data for many of them. You can be assured that as more information is declassified, it will be featured in next year's Galactic Weapons Handbook._

_Sincerely,_

_The Staff_

**Preface**

Historically, the Orion Arm has always categorized weaponry based on the size of the weapon's mount. The practice likely originates from their use of many diverse weapon types, making conventional categorization based on barrel size or energy frequency somewhat useless. The six general sizes of weapon mounts are very light, light, medium, heavy, very heavy, and super heavy.

Very light weapons are restricted to point defense use, and are often the size of a heavy machine gun or other portable weapon. Light mounts are larger, the approximate size of fixed anti-aircraft turrets. Medium weapons are roughly equivalent in size and power to the main guns for most modern armored vehicles. Heavy weapons are about the same as the turreted antiship weapons found on some cruisers, and are the smallest weapon size most Council races would seriously consider for naval use. Very heavy weapons are quite large by Orion standards, sometimes as large as a frigate's spinal gun. Super heavy weapons are extremely rare, and are only found on specialized ships.

Weapon mounts typically scale in a factor of three. For example, a medium turret could hold a medium mount weapon, or three light mount weapons. The exception to this rule is the very heavy and super heavy categories. The specialized hardware such large weapons require typically prevents their mounts from used for anything other than their designated purpose.

Though each weapon has its own size, most weapons will fall into one of several categories or subcategories based on how they deal damage. Before contact was established with the Orion Arm, weapons could be easily classified as ballistic, warhead, or energy based. But the diverse technology base of the Arm has changed all that. An entirely new category had to be added and new subcategories also had to be created, sometimes with subcategories of their own. The four broadest categories of weaponry are currently energy, torpedo, warhead, and ballistic. We will assess each category in turn, and then provide brief descriptions of the most advanced weapons in these fields.

Energy weapons are a complex category, with five distinct subcategories. The first and most primitive category is the laser, which lases a specific portion of the electromagnetic spectrum to produce a powerful burst of energy. The second category is the particle beam, which focuses a beam of charged particles at the target for destructive effect. Though much more damaging than lasers, they are much larger, and require at least a heavy mount. The third category is the heavy beam. Though different types of heavy beams can be technically classified as either lasers or particle beams, their sheer size (requiring at least a very heavy mount) has given them their own category. The fourth category of energy weapons is the most complex: packet weapons. These weapons fire a blast of exotic material at the target. The material is contained in an energy field to prevent dissipation, the eponymous 'packet'. These weapons are often found in medium mounts, though heavier designs exist. The final category is the emitter category, which is simple in theory but complex in function. Also known as lightning guns, emitters induce an arc of plasma that hits a target and then immediately jumps to another nearby target. The smallest emitters can fit into a light mount, but larger emitter designs exist, capable of creating more powerful plasma arcs that can jump to more than one target at a time.

Of these, the laser and energy packet categories both feature unique subcategories. Lasers are traditionally divided into burst and beamer categories. Burst lasers fire a series of powerful shots, while beams fire a single continuous beam of energy. Most Council lasers fall into the beamer category. Recently, a third weapon has been added to the laser category: the phaser. Phasers use phased light combined with a particle discharge to create a powerful energy beam. Beam phasers are medium mount weapons, but the smaller pulse and point defense phasers can be placed in light and very light mounts, respectively.

Energy packets are also divided into three categories: standard, polarized, and projector. Polarized energy packets are those that have polarized (as the name would suggest) to spin on a horizontal axis. This creates a slicing edge, greatly increasing armor penetration at the cost of raw damage. Currently, polarized energy packet technology is exclusive to the Morrigi Confederation. Packet projectors are very heavy weapons and fire a massive barrage of thirty or more energy packets at a target. The barrage is very inaccurate but extremely deadly to large or fixed targets.

The Torpedo category is much more straightforward. 'Torpedoes' are very large fields of exotic matter or particles wrapped in an energy field, similar in design to energy packet weapons. They differ from older Citadel torpedo designs like disruptor torpedoes in that these torpedoes are almost entirely energy, with only a tiny amount of matter provided in the form of a small device that maintains and guides the weapon. Disrupter torpedoes were physical weapons, and as such have remained in the Warhead category. Torpedoes can have many unique properties depending on their payload and the technology used to create them. Though they are almost entirely energy, they can be intercepted or weakened by conventional point defense systems, which can disrupt the torpedo's containment field. Torpedoes are usually tracking weapons, but are often somewhat slow. Most torpedoes require a very heavy mount.

Similar to the Torpedo category, the Warhead category has many different types of weapon associated with it, but only two actual subcategories: mines and missiles. Mines are 'dumb' munitions that are dropped with proximity triggers. When a target wanders too close, they detonate. Missiles are self-propelled physical ordinance that deliver a specific payload to a target. The size and payload of missiles may vary, but the principle remains the same, whether the missile is delivering a solid neutronium penetrator or a cloud of corrosive nanites. Missiles come in several basic sizes, listed here from smallest to largest: Interceptor (micromissiles for PD use), Rapid (small missiles dumbfired in salvoes of five), Standard (ordinary tracking missiles for long range engagements), Polaris (miniaturized variant of the interorbital ballistic missile), interorbital ballistic missile (also called the IOBM, commonly found on large defense platforms and super dreadnoughts), and heavy IOBMs (miniaturized planetary defense missiles). There is some overlap between missiles and other categories. Suicide drones are sometimes considered missiles in that they are independently seeking weapons that explode on contact. Leap mines are equipped with microfusion drives that allow them to seek nearby targets like a missile would, so some have argued that they are more missile than mine.

Though the use of ballistic weapons to deliver different types of ordinance is not a new concept, the Orion Arm has a unique approach to the idea. Rather than building one gun to fire different shells, they prefer to build weapons specifically to fire certain types of ammunition. This allows their ballistic weapons to be much more effective than their limited size would suggest, but at the expense of flexibility. Though the simplest in function, the Ballistic category has the most subcategories of any weapon type. Including normal slugs, there are seven different types of ballistic weapons. Despite their sheer number, none of these subcategories have any subdivisions of their own.

The first is of course the ordinary shell, which uses basic or mass effect physics to deliver a solid projectile to the target. The second type is the armor piercer, which use special shells fired at high speed to quickly tear through armor. Due to their extreme velocity and small projectile size, most mass effect ballistic weapons are classified as armor piercers. Grapplers represent the third subcategory, and usually consist of sophisticated harpoons and cables that attach to enemy ships on impact. Stormers, the fourth subcategory, are designed to fire a rapid burst of smaller shells at a target. The fifth subcategory consists of bursters, large fragmentation and shotgun type weapons. The next subcategory includes thumper weapons, guns designed to fire gravity or mass warheads that shove vessels away from the point of impact. The final category is the complex ordinance launcher (COL), high caliber magnetic catapults that launch specialized munitions into enemy formations. Unlike the other categories, COLs are not designed to directly attack enemy vessels, and serve instead as support weapons.

The following section lists the most advanced weapons in each category that have been declassified by their respective governments. As mentioned above, the advanced nature of these weapons means that all but the most basic information is classified.

**Energy Weapons**

**Heavy Antimatter Cannon**  
**Category**: Energy, Packet  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Tarkasian Empire

The heavy antimatter cannon is the largest non-projector packet weapon in existence. It is a tribarreled design, firing bursts of three energy packets per volley. Each packet contains a payload of positronic plasma that detonates violently on contact with normal matter. It is designed for medium engagements, as the packet does not have time to fully develop at shorter ranges and will dissipate at long range.

**Fusion Projector**  
**Category**: Energy,Packet, Projector  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Salarian Union, Tarkasian Empire, Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance

Fusion projectors are not a new weapon, having seen service for several decades now. However, it is only in recent years that they have seen wide scale deployment. Fusion projectors fire a barrage of thirty plasma packets at fusion temperatures, and are capable of melting through even dreadnought armor. Due to their inaccuracy, they are only effective at close ranges.

**Variable Phaser**  
**Category**: Energy, Laser, Phaser  
**Size**: Medium  
**Usage**: SolForce

The variable phaser combines the best features of the standard phaser beam and the smaller pulse phaser. At longer ranges, the variable phaser fires rapid pulses with great accuracy, allowing it to engage small, nimble targets. At close ranges, it switches to firing solid beams for maximum damage. Some larger SolForce ships use variable phasers as a crude form of point defense, but most consider the yield of a variable phaser to be overkill against all but the heaviest point defense targets.

**Inertial Cannon**  
**Category**: Energy, Particle Beam  
**Size**: Medium  
**Usage**: SolForce

Inertial cannons are an oddity in the particle beam category, as they do not fire actual beams. Instead, they use an unknown means to induce a temporary shift in the target's acceleration/inertia ratio. This results in a slight drop in speed and agility, which may be compounded by additional inertial cannon hits. Inertial cannons do not directly damage targets, but the stress caused by sudden inertial shifts can cause ruptures in a vehicle's internal structure.

**Meson Beam**  
**Category**: Energy, Particle Beam  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: SolForce, Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance, Asari Republics

Meson beams actually fire neutrally charged pions, a subtype of meson. Neutral pions are capable of passing harmlessly through most forms of matter and decay extremely rapidly into gamma rays. When accelerated to relativistic speeds, time dilation slows the decay of the pion, allowing it to pass harmlessly into the interior of a ship where it finally decays into a lethal blast of gamma rays. The massive amount of calculations required to time this reaction properly on moving targets prevents meson beams from completely ignoring armor, but they remain one of the most effective weapons for penetrating armor known to modern science.

**Cutting Beam**  
**Category**: Energy, Heavy Beam  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance

The most powerful beam weapon in the known galaxy, the poorly named cutting beam is capable of hitting with a force of over 58 kilotons, considerably more than that of a Council dreadnought's main gun. This impressive yield is achieved through the creation and acceleration of a high-energy antiproton stream, which also allows for improved range over older lancer heavy beam weapons. Even with the range increase, it is still limited to short and medium engagements, and like most heavy beams it is restricted to special very heavy weapon mounts.

**Heavy Emitters**  
**Category**: Energy, Emitter  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance, Quarian Migrant Fleet

Heavy emitters are commonly known as 'pirate swatters' in the Attican Traverse. The power and accuracy of a heavy emitter's plasma arcs is impressive, allowing it to reliably hit high mobility targets like frigates and corvettes. The secondary arcs then inflict the same damage to other vessels near the target, regardless of size. A single shot can disable an entire bomber squadron, or do serious damage to a wolf pack of larger ships. Like their smaller cousins, heavy emitters are short ranged and the secondary arcs still do not distinguish friend from foe, so the weapon is only useful in specific situations.

**Torpedo Weapons**

**Antimatter Torpedo**  
**Category**: Torpedo  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance, SolForce, Salarian Union

An antimatter torpedo consists of a field of deuterium antimatter in a magnetic field. They are most effective at longer ranges, where the torpedo explodes with noticeably increased force. The reason for this yield increase is not publicly known, but is theorized to have something to do with an ongoing reaction inside the magnetic envelope. An antimatter torpedo at long range hits with a force of 73.5 kilotons, but the torpedo's slow speed means that more mobile targets will often have plenty of opportunities to outdistance it. For this reason, the torpedo is most effective against dreadnoughts and other large targets.

**Gluonic Torpedo**  
**Category**: Torpedo  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Hiver Imperium, Turian Hierarchy

Gluonic torpedoes consist of a field of charged gluons inside an electromagnetic field. Unlike many other torpedoes, they lose power as they travel instead of gaining it. However, gluonic torpedoes have the unique ability to pass harmlessly through deflector shields, which normally prevent ballistic, missile, and torpedo weapons from impacting. Gluonic torpedoes do not track, but have a much faster rate of fire than most other torpedo types.

**Pulsar Torpedo**  
**Category**: Torpedo  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Tarkasian Empire, Salarian Union

Short ranged for a torpedo, pulsar torpedoes are only effective at medium range or closer. They consisted of a guided ball of electrical plasma that does little damage on its own, but is capable of shorting out systems near the torpedo's impact point. For smaller ships, one or two pulsar hits can shut down the entire vessel.

**Warhead Weapons**

**Antimatter IOBM MIRV Missiles**  
**Category**: Warhead, Missile  
**Size**: Super Heavy  
**Usage**: SolForce, Salarian Union

The MIRV variant of the IOBM is specifically designed to splinter into ten standard missiles just before reaching point defense range, overwhelming the enemy's PD grid with numbers. Like most missiles, they are very long ranged. Due to the strength of modern PD grids, these missiles are typically fired as part of larger salvos, to increase the number of targets PD turrets have to deal with.

**Phantom Missiles**  
**Category**: Warhead, Missile  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance

An upgrade to the Polaris missile, phantom missiles are equipped with intangibility fields, allowing them to completely drop out of known reality for brief periods of time. Though their small size prevents them from keeping the field active for long, phantom missiles will automatically shift in pre-programmed blinks, often dropping back into our universe directly on top of their targets. This makes interception very difficult.

**Kinetic Missiles**  
**Category**: Warhead, Missile  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Hiver Imperium

A simple concept, kinetic missiles are nothing more than a solid mass of super-dense neutronium with powerful ionic thrusters attached. Internal mass effect fields keep the missile's mass at near zero for the duration of the missile's flight, and then increase its mass dramatically just before impact. Ships that survive a kinetic missile strike are often thrown wildly off course by the force of the collision. The reduced mass allows kinetic missiles to avoid better avoid point defense fire, but they are not fully able to dodge laser weapons, and as such are armored heavily.

**Blast Storm Missile**  
**Category**: Warhead, Missile  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Tarkasian Empire

A twist on their existing blast beam missile, the blast storm missile is actually a complex laser array. The missile closes with its target and detonates a short distance away, showering the target area with a cone of x-ray laser volleys. The missile's targeting is very simplistic, so it can only fire its blast at very close range. Despite this, the instantaneous nature of lasers lets the blast storm missile do serious damage to smaller ships caught in the cone. It has seen much use in the Attican Traverse against pirate vessels, and its long range makes it very effective at crippling fleeing ships.

**Node Missile**  
**Category**: Warhead, Missile  
**Size**: Super Heavy  
**Usage**: SolForce

An old weapon, node missiles are high yield IOBMs with node drives attached. They would be fired into node lines, where they would travel autonomously to nearby systems and drop back into real space to strike without warning. Though originally used as a terror weapon in the Hiver/Tarka War, node missiles were also used for surgical strikes against sensitive targets in the Zuul War. They were retired following the Via Demasco Rebellion, when over a dozen Node Missiles were captured by rogue AIs and fired into civilian centers. The increase in political tension has prompted SolForce to resurrect the old design, now upgraded to include an antimatter warhead.

**Ballistic Weapons**

**Heavy Ripper**  
**Category**: Ballistic, Stormer  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Hiver Imperium

The ripper is an upgrade to the older stormer design, and actually sits on the border between stormer weapons and armor piercers. The heavy ripper fires powerful armor-piercing shots in bursts of six, while the smaller medium variant fires more shots, but does not penetrate armor as well. When used in larger numbers, rippers can literally shred enemy vessels. The rapidness of their bursts causes some instability however, and rippers are very short ranged as a result.

**Shield Breakers**  
**Category**: Ballistic, Armor Piercer  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Hiver Imperium, Turian Hierarchy, Quarian Migrant Fleet

Shield breakers are an excellent example of highly specialized munitions. Filled with ferros-silicate dust, shield breakers are specifically designed to disrupt shields and do massive damage to any they hit. They do little damage to ships themselves, but are extremely effective against both energy shields and mass effect barriers. Interestingly, small scale tests have shown that breaker dust is only effective against artificial barriers. The natural barriers created by biotics are largely unaffected. Technically, shield breakers do not penetrate well against armor, but their unique design is superficially similar to that of the HEAP round, so they have been allocated to this category for the time being. The complex workings of a true shield breaker round prevents it from being used in anything smaller than a heavy mount, but smaller variants that combine the dust with disruptor fields or proton cores are also common.

**Tumbler**  
**Category**: Ballistic, Thumper  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Hiver Imperium, Turian Hierarchy

A variant of the thumper, the tumbler does not just push a target, it also spins them. This type of round has proved extremely effective against ships with spinal weapons, and it boasts impressive range for an Orion Arm ballistic design. The primary downside to the tumbler is that it has limited armor penetration and does not do much damage, but the weapon's fast fire rate and gravity effect often make up for those weaknesses.

**Flechette Cannon**  
**Category**: Ballistic, Burster  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Tarkasian Empire

Effectively a massive armor piercing shotgun, the flechette cannon is another weapon that straddles the line between categories. Very short ranged, the cannon's small individual flechettes are not particularly effective against larger targets. Instead, they are used against frigates and battleriders, where the large spread of projectiles prevents their more nimble targets from evading. Flechette cannons are also commonly used to finish off larger ships once their armor has been weakened.

**Disruptor Whip**  
**Category**: Ballistic, Grappler  
**Size**: Heavy  
**Usage**: Tarkasian Empire

Extremely short ranged, the disruptor whip is essentially a powerful harpoon with a strong cable attached. It does virtually no damage, but once attached a massive disruptor charge is run through the cable, shorting out all nearby weapon systems in a massive overload. The cable also anchors the target to the ship that fired the whip, holding it in place and preventing it from maneuvering. Disruptor whips are popular for boarding actions, holding vessels still and disabling their weapons while boarders deploy to take the ship. Disruptor whips have begun appearing in the Terminus Systems, where they are popular with both pirates and bounty hunters.

**Cry Baby COL**  
**Category**: Ballistic, COL  
**Size**: Very Heavy  
**Usage**: Salarian Union, Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance

Cry baby launchers fire small satellites equipped with powerful wild weasel systems. These systems broadcast signals on all available frequencies, attempting to attract all guided ordinance in the immediate area. The cry baby satellite is not particularly well armored and has no point defense systems, so it is usually destroyed shortly after activation, but since most guided weapons do not have sufficient logic to select new targets a properly used cry baby can negate an entire missile salvo. The Salarian Union often uses modified cry baby satellites to create sensor ghosts and other electronic warfare effects. Cry babies are also popular among pirates, who use them to lure ships into traps with false distress signals.


	40. Enforcer

Paetia Habsis was bored.

She knew she shouldn't be. She had the privilege of serving in one of the Turian Hierarchy's peacekeeping fleets, something most couldn't boast. Even a child would tell you that while the patrol fleets were the shield that protected the galaxy, the peacekeeping fleets were the Council's iron fist. With a compliment of one hundred twenty frigates, forty five cruisers, and three dreadnoughts, the Sixth Fleet was the most dangerous thing for a thousand light years.

It wasn't as though they were on a dull mission either. The Sixth normally patrolled around the Citadel, a prestigious but dull assignment. Now they were hunting the _Leviathan_. Half the crew was still giddy with excitement. After years with nothing to shoot at but smugglers and especially stupid pirates, this was their big chance to prove their worth to the galaxy. Paetia was as eager as any of them, at first. Who wouldn't be? But as the days turned to weeks, she and the fleet's other sensor officers had come up with a new name for the murderous super-dreadnought: the Ghost Ship.

Even with their new node pathing sensors and the node map SolForce had reluctantly handed over, the ship was almost impossible to track. The Council had finally twisted the ship's schematics out of those xenophobic monkeys, however so far they had been almost completely worthless. Admiral Lucinus might still get some use out of them if they ever caught the damn thing, but they were useless for tracking. The ship's range and emissions were obviously very different from what the schematics suggested, and its speed seemed to dip wildly up and down.

It was a nightmare problem, to the point where Paetia sometimes swore the _Leviathan_ knew it was being followed. It took node lines SolForce didn't even know about, tried to mask its core and waste emissions with nebulae and other debris fields, and generally pulled every trick in the book to spoof their long range sensors. If it weren't such a huge ship, she was certain they wouldn't even know what sector it was in. The pressure only made it worse. Every day the extranet was full of pundits and newscasters asking why the _Leviathan_ hadn't been found yet, even though half the galaxy was looking for it. As if finding a single ship in the vastness of space was simply like finding a lost keycard.

But they were right about one thing: it hadn't stopped with Thessia. Since their search began, the Ghost Ship had hit three other systems. The first was Maos, where it had completely ignored the defenders to smash a populated habitat station. Nearly one hundred fifty thousand dead. They'd picked up its trail there, but the ship's path was too strange to let them close the gap before it hit Olor, its first non-Asari target. The Salarians had some kind of long range sensor satellites, so they were able to see it coming for all the good it did. The whole colony was glassed, with over two million dead. Then it slipped through a set of unmapped node lines into the Asari colony of Niacal not six days later. It completely annihilated every ship in orbit before striking a single city and leaving. Eighty seven thousand dead.

Niacal was a surprise. The _Leviathan _usually waited weeks before attacking again. The warning they'd gotten at Olor had helped them catch up, but the sudden break in its pattern was unsettling. The good news was that Niacal hadn't gone down without a fight. The Asari were bunkering up, and the fortified defenders had managed to damage its engines enough to cause a plasma leak. The Sixth didn't have the right equipment to detect it at long range, but the Salarians did. A flotilla of scanner ships was on its way from the Union's Third Fleet, scheduled to arrive any day now.

Faced with a cold trail and an increasingly unpredictable query, the admiral had jumped at the offer of assistance. So they'd had halted their search at a nearby relay to wait for the Salarians to catch up. Relay 289 was on the border between Asari and Turian space, and in her opinion was officially the ass end of nowhere. It wasn't involved in any trade routes, it wasn't connected to the Traverse or Terminus. Technically it was in the Orion Arm, but then so was the Citadel and Krogan DMZ. Like the Citadel, Relay 289 was at least several thousand light years from even the most remote Orion outpost. Even with their fastest drives, it would take years for them to get here without using a relay.

So Paetia was bored. She had three hours left in her shift, and the only motion out there was the spinning of the relay's rings. The Asari and Humans might write songs and poems about the beauty of space, but after looking at it for the past seven hours she could officially say that every single one of those stupid rhymes was full of shit.

She looked over her instruments again, just to prove to herself how boring space really was. No temperature fluctuations, no abnormal light sources, no mineral readings, background radiation normal. It was a cold, black nothing with some shiny dots in it. She was halfway through composing her own verse about just how dull and useless space really was when her every single ones of her systems went insane.

"Spirits!" she cursed, drawing the attention of everyone on the bridge.

"What's wrong?" Ruxius Palanurus asked from his command podium. Ruxius was a veteran commander, and Paetia liked him. He'd overlooked some over her larger breeches of protocol in the past, and even let his crew call him by name. Not that they would, of course. To them, he was always 'The Captain'.

"Either we just had the biggest sensor glitch I've ever seen or a ship just dropped out of nowhere right on top of us!" she reported, eyes flicking over her screen. "There was a radiation spike that's dropped off now. Mineral scanners are picking up some kind of unknown material that doesn't match anything in our database. I've got a visual, but you're not going to believe it."

"Pull it up," the grizzled old turian growled around one of his scars. "Put it on the galaxy display, please. Let's get a look at this thing."

The galaxy map vanished, replaced by an image of the strange object. The entire bridge gaped.

"Paetia, if this is a prank, I swear by the deck I'm standing on you will know nothing but latrines for the next year," he said evenly, his sharp eyes darting over the image.

"I wish, Captain. I pinged the picket ships as soon as I saw it. The rest of the fleet confirms. It's really out there, and this is really what it looks like."

"A flying freaking saucer? Spirits have mercy, the monkeys were right all along."

It really did look like a saucer, Paetia agreed. She wasn't sure where humans came into it, of course, but the Captain was always watching those alien vids when he was off duty. It must have been a cultural thing. She quickly dismissed that mental tangent as irrelevant, focusing back on the mysterious ship.

The object was quite simple in shape: just a flat, silver disc with a large dome in the center. It was about the size of a large dreadnought and sleek enough to be a Salarian's wet dream, assuming the asexual frogs even had those. Attempts at a deep scan were pointless, as all but her most basic sensors were sliding right off its shining hull. It didn't have any drive system that she could recognize. She couldn't even figure out which part was supposed to be the front. It didn't have any obvious weapons, at least.

"Captain, it's doing something to the relay!" she warned as her instruments detected a barrage of radiation and strange signals from the chrome saucer. For a moment she wondered what was going on before her terminal was again overwhelmed with new information. "I don't believe it…It's hacking the relay!"

"What? How?" asked the Captain, just before his own screen flashed. He glanced quickly at it before standing up straight and assuming what Paetia called his 'business pose'. "All hands, battle stations! Admiral's orders, we are not to let that thing tamper with the relay. Helm, bring us to cruising speed and take us fifteen degrees to starboard. We're on the flank. Get me a shooting solution on the main gun as soon as we're in formation."

"It's stopped," she called quickly, even as the floor beneath her jerked as they began moving. "Maybe it saw what we were doing? No, wait, now it's-"

"**AATUKLAY A**RADABAY ** IKTONAY,"** a huge voice boomed. Paetia wasn't sure how the signal was getting in, the communication officer certainly hadn't done anything. She'd heard Liir telepathic communication before, and this wasn't like that either. The voice just was, resounding from everywhere at once in a bombastic fanfare. She winced, but didn't look away from her screens.

"Captain, it's using the relay to boost its signal. That transmission probably went through every relay in-"

"**SENTIENTS OF GALAXY ORANDOS VIOLET ORATION. HEAR THE JUDGMENT OF THE PEACEKEEPERS OF STELLAR GENERATION PRIME."**

In her peripheral vision, she saw the Captain's terminal flash again.

"Helm, all stop. The admiral has officially classified this as a First Contact situation, so if it wants to talk he wants us to let it. Keep the weapons hot, just in case," he ordered carefully, just before the booming voice continued.

"**YOUR VIOLENCE AGAINST EACH OTHER HAS ATTRACTED THE ATTENTION OF THIS ENFORCER. WHILE IT MAINTAINS THIS SECTOR, ALL ACTS OF INTERSTELLAR VIOLENCE WILL CEASE, AND ALL PRODUCTION OF WAR VESSELS SHALL HALT.** **SHOULD THE ENFORCER DETECT EITHER AGGRESSION, OR A BUILD-UP TOWARDS AGGRESSION, IT IS PROGRAMMED TO TAKE STEPS. STEPS **_**BEYOND YOUR IMAGINING**_**."**

Paetia looked around the bridge in confusion, hoping someone had been able to make sense of that one. Was it threatening them because of what the _Leviathan_ was doing? That didn't make sense. Everyone else looked just as puzzled. The Captain was the only one who didn't seem perplexed, standing as stoically as ever on his podium.

"**ALL THESE WORLDS ARE YOURS. USE THEM TOGETHER. USE THEM IN PEACE."**

A deafening silence overtook the bridge as they all stared at the mysterious saucer. The message was pretty clear, but at the same time made no sense. There hadn't been any violence in this sector. The _Leviathan's_ attacks hadn't even happened in the same galactic arm. And what steps was it going to take? It didn't have any weapons. Paetia's musings were suddenly cut off when she saw the instruments on her terminal begin to spike again.

"Shit. It looks like it's scanning us. Not just us, the whole fleet! It's a detailed scan, too. I'm picking up trace echos from every single deck."

"**YOU HAVE VIOLATED PACT ORTHONIAN TRIACTOR!"**

The voice, once boasting and bombastic, now had a hint of wrath in its tone. The smooth surface of the ship split and peeled, hidden panels sliding apart to show rows of gleaming weapon turrets. A long horizontal panel on the side of dome opened, revealing a darkly colored horizontal track that mounted a single device. It was radiating impossible amounts of energy, to the point where the actual device was invisible behind its own glow. The saucer began moving, accelerating to an attack speed as the tracked device swung to face them, burning like a malevolent red eye.

"**PREPARE FOR ADJUDICATION!"**


	41. The Peacekeeper (Codex)

_Right about now, those of you who are familiar with SotS know exactly what's going on, and everyone else is going 'Huh?' Allow me to assist you! In SotS, there are creatures known as Grand Menaces, vessels of such power that it takes multiple fleets to even have a prayer of defeating. They wander around the galaxy, generally ruining everyone's day in a variety of creative ways. The System Killer from the Black List is one such enemy. The Peacekeeper is another._

_The Peacekeeper Enforcer was by for the most requested GM in my reviews, though I was going to include him anyway. He's so much fun, and the irony of him fighting the Turians was just too much to resist. And yes, the developers have confirmed that he's a direct reference to Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still. That's not just me being a scifi geek. Expect to see a lot more of the Peacekeeper in the near future, because he'll be driving the plot for the next few chapters._

_Hopefully you all find this codex enlightening. I rushed it a bit to get it out before the weekend, so those of you who are only here for the Mass Effect wouldn't be wandering around confused for quite so long. Hopefully the quality is still decent. Like? Don't like? You know where the review button is._

* * *

The Enforcer Vessel, also known as the Peacekeeper, Object 526, and Ortgay (an ancient Quarian word indicating cleansing or scouring), is a nine hundred and fifty meter long ship in the shape of a saucer. The ship uses an unknown power source and does not appear to utilize element zero in any way. The Enforcer's exact means of propulsion is unknown, but it appears to achieve FTL via a complex form of quantum scattering that allows it to teleport over immense distances.

Its hull is constructed of an unknown material that deflects most sensors, as well providing excellent resistance to energy attacks. The few sensors that are not deflected suggest the ship is a solid state, with no crew or internal corridors. It has shown enough flexibility in tactics to rule out the possibility of VI control, but experts are divided on if the ship is controlled by an AI or an uploaded organic personality.

The first recorded encounter with the Enforcer occurred during the Via Damasco Rebellion. A task force of SolForce ships was pursuing a fleeing group of AI vessels when the Enforcer appeared and ordered them to stand down. They refused and were completely annihilated. The data recovered from the task force's remains were almost completely unrecoverable, and with such limited data the Enforcer was believed to be a new AI super weapon, rather than an independent entity. When it did not resurface in the decades following the Rebellion, it was assumed that the ship had been lost with the rest of the Via Damasco rebels.

The ship was next sighted late in 2184 CE, when it appeared at Relay 289. It used an unknown method to tap into the relay, harnessing its properties to broadcast a transmission through the entire relay network. In this transmission, it threatened to intervene in any acts of interstellar violence, and to prevent any large fleet buildups. Due to the content of this transmission, it is believed that the Enforcer was intended to be a police vessel, preventing galactic conflict through use of overwhelming force.

Immediately after finishing this transmission, the Enforcer attacked the Turian Sixth Fleet, which had previously been deployed to that location to find the _SFS Leviathan_. After losing two-thirds of their force, the fleet retreated from the relay and the Enforcer did not pursue. Since then, it has appeared repeatedly throughout the Attican Traverse and Council Space.

It seems to be slowly working its way along the Turian border, systematically attacking shipyards and other heavily fortified worlds. It has also intervened in several existing conflicts, destroying one of the Morrigi Confederation's pirate hunter fleets, as well as appearing when the _Leviathan_ attempted to attack the colony of Gellix. Unfortunately the _Leviathan_ fled back into node space before the Enforcer could fully engage it.

The Enforcer's communications are very brief, and it does not respond to attempts at dialog. It has referenced "Pact Orthonian Triactor" several times, typically just before engaging. The details of this treaty are unknown and no stellar nation has admitted to knowledge of the agreement, much less being a signatory. Based on the actions of the Enforcer, it is theorized that the pact is a form of non-aggression treaty explicitly forbidding any form of interstellar conflict. The pact is presumed to place an upward limit on fleet size, because the Enforcer will abruptly disengage from battle when it has reduced the enemy to a small number of vessels. Attempts to attack it once it begins to leave will cause it to return, not departing until all resistance is extinguished. This can include attacks against planetary weapon emplacements, which it does not normally seem to consider pact violations.

The Enforcer Vessel is very well armed, but it normally conceals these weapons under mobile armor plates. Its weapons are only deployed when it is about to begin hostilities. It mounts twenty large beam turrets, equivalent in yield to lancer heavy beam weapons, in a circular pattern on the top of the saucer. Radiating out from these turrets are forty smaller heavy mount turrets. These turrets appear to be armed with a variant of the heavy emitter energy weapon. Unlike normal emitters, which only induce plasma arcs, these weapons also channel a powerful disruptor charge that can disable systems near the point of impact. Along the edge of the saucer, the Enforcer mounts twenty antimatter projectors. Though antimatter projector technology has always been theorized as possible, only the Salarian Union and Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance have developed working prototypes, none of which are currently ready for deployment.

Despite this heavy armament, the Enforcer's primary weapons are the two unique beam weapons it mounts in the center of the saucer. Each beam is mounted on a track that provides almost one hundred eighty degrees of coverage, with one weapon facing forward and the other facing to the rear. Once locked onto a target, the beam rapidly scans the target at a quantum level before instantly randomizing the target's molecules over a few megameters of nearby space. This beam bypasses all known forms of shielding and barriers. Armor has proven equally useless, though larger and denser targets appear to take longer to scan. The beam usually takes slightly more than six seconds to fully scan and destroy a dreadnought, and fires once every fifteen seconds. Because the beam cannot scatter a target's molecules without fully scanning them, evasive maneuvers have proven somewhat useful in countering the beam.

Though the Enforcer has proven resistant to scanning, its armor is believed to be extremely resilient. Reviews of combat footage suggest that it may offer nearly twice the protection of the _Destiny Ascension's _own armor. It also appears capable of gradual self-repair. Damage from previous engagements is noticeably smaller in subsequent battles. In addition to this armor, the vessel possesses a previously unknown form of energy shielding. Turrets on the saucer's rim project powerful energy fields in ninety degree cones that stop a short distance from the ship's surface. These shield cones have proven completely immune to all forms of attack, both energetic and ballistic. Fortunately, these shield projectors can only cover a limited area and do not provide good vertical coverage, preventing the ship from being truly invulnerable. It does mount forty of these shield turrets, however, so attacks along its horizontal plane are almost certainly doomed to fail.

The Enforcer is extremely swift for a ship that does not use element zero. It is capable of matching speed with a Turian cruiser at maximum thrust, despite outmassing it by several orders of magnitude. The method it uses to achieve this speed is unknown, as it does not have any visible engines. It is still not fast enough to keep pace with frigates or other ships designed for speed, but it does not need to be. When outdistanced by an enemy, the vessel will trigger a short range teleport, dispersing and reforming in close proximity with its target. Similarly, it does not typically approach enemy fleets at sublight speed, preferring to teleport into hostile systems next to or behind its intended targets. It also uses this ability to engage enemies at or exceeding light speed, as proven when it successfully intercepted and destroyed a Hiver nesting fleet and a Tarkasian military convoy, both of which were traveling at their maximum speeds. Interestingly, it always retracts its weapons before a teleportation, suggesting that it cannot engage its FTL drive when they are deployed.

As its choice of targets might suggest, it possesses extremely powerful sensor equipment. The exact strength of these sensors is unknown, but it is definitely capable of detecting ships and energy discharges from across entire star clusters. It also seems unaffected by all known stealth technology, including cloaking fields. It is theorized that intangibility fields may have some effect on the Enforcer, but it has not yet been tested.

The Enforcer is considered extremely dangerous. Until more is known about what triggers its violence, civilian traffic is advised to remain calm, scatter, and leave the system at best possible speed. If it reveals its weapons before escape is possible, evacuation to shuttles and other escape craft is recommended. There are no recorded instances of the Enforcer intentionally firing on such escape vehicles. Attacking it for any reason, even in self-defense, is strongly discouraged. Such efforts are almost certainly doomed to fail and will only provoke increased aggression from the vessel. Even if encountered in a peaceful state, civilians are cautioned not to approach it. It cannot be bribed, bartered, or reasoned with, and its logic is extremely unpredictable. Noncombatants are advised to quickly leave the system and contact a police or military outpost as soon as possible.


	42. Unity (Story)

_Hey, first chapter of 2015! I had way more fun writing it than I really should have. Honestly, students are the best narrative device a writer could ask for when you want to deliver exposition. They know just enough to give the readers the basics, but they don't know enough to bog your story down with really complex political theory. Plus you can make them talk about whatever you want, and it's plausible. So handy. _

_On a very technical level, this chapter's pretty close to filler. The plot doesn't really advance in any meaningful way. But I like the idea of getting a view of all this political stuff from the ground sometimes, rather than from the eyes of special agents or incredible powerful politicians. A million is a statistic, after all, and it adds more layers to the story. Plus I get to play around with cultural stereotypes, which is really fun._

_As usual, reviews are appreciated and will be responded to. I'm curious whose side everyone was on during the debate... _

* * *

"Can everyone hear me okay?" asked Lee, eyeing the wall-mounted holoreceiver with barely concealed nervousness. Sister Wong had insisted he wear his best outfit, but his formal suit no longer fit quite right after his last growth spurt. He suppressed the urge to yank it back down as it started riding up again, instead focusing on the other glowing images in the room.

"The signal is fine," the glowing image of a slim young Asari replied curtly.

She wore a tight-fitting dress that hugged her body and left large portions of her torso exposed. Lee's stomach did a backflip and he tried very hard not to stare. Glamour might not carry over the extranet, but he was a teenage boy. Anything vaguely the right shape got his pulse racing these days. His mother told him it was perfectly normal. His father just threw him a dirty magazine and said if he ever caught Lee looking at 'alien smut', he'd beat him unconscious.

"Affirmative. I read you loud and clear," agreed the hologram of a short Turian girl. "The line is solid."

Her proportions were strange, with strangely jointed limbs and a broad chest that tapered down to a narrow waist. Her face was covered in plates, but they weren't an exoskeleton like Hivers seemed to have. Her face was sleek and narrow, with three streaks of dark green paint giving her a somewhat savage appearance. Unlike the Asari's rather daring outfit, she wore a plain military jumpsuit with an angled, martial-looking logo proudly emblazoned on the sleeve and upper chest. It fit snuggly, but seemed more professional than sexual. She also had some kind of eyepiece clipped to her head, but the scrolling text that crawled over it was too small for him to make out. As she reached up to change the feed with a three-fingered claw, Lee tried to keep his eyes on the Turian's face. Three fingers was common for a lot of species, he reminded himself. It wasn't weird. Really.

"I can also hear all of you well," said the floating image of a Liir. Unlike the others, it was completely nude, covered only by thin fur and swirling patterns of tattoos. Four thin tentacles sprouted from around its jaws like whiskers, waving lazily as it spoke. Lee's eyes naturally drifted toward the Liir's underside, but there were no signs of any reproductive organs hanging loose. He wasn't sure if that was because they were internal or if the transmitter automatically edited them out. Mentally, he shook himself and tried to focus. He was representing humanity to the galaxy, and here he was, looking for dolphin dicks! He cleared his throat awkwardly.

"Um. In that case, I guess we should get started." Lee pulled up a file he'd prepared on his omnitool. "My supervisor said I'm supposed to read this before we start, so let's get it over with."

The Turian nodded, but the Asari just looked annoyed. The Liir was unreadable, though he figured he was still better off than if he was talking to it in person. At least this way it couldn't read his thoughts and see how nervous he was. He'd never talked to an alien before, and now he was talking to three of them! And he'd just been trying to see its junk. Liir had both sets, didn't they? And what would a Turian's look like? Did they really have those plates all over? It seemed really uncomfortable. He realized his thoughts were wandering into dark places again, and the others were starting to stare. He cleared his throat once more, and tried to look serious.

"Um…'The Youth United is a galaxy-wide extranet program that aims to connect young people of all species through group activities and education. You all have been selected due to your outstanding academic achievements to serve as cultural ambassadors for your respective places of learning. Throughout this program, you will meet regularly to discuss current events as well as specific parts of your culture. Please remember to keep an open mind during your discussions, as the goal of Youth United is to foster a greater understanding of different cultures and traditions to promote cultural and intellectual enlightenment.'"

"Yeah, that'll happen," the Asari scoffed derisively.

"I am sorry, I do not understand," the young Liir said softly. The small study room Lee had been assigned wasn't large enough to show it at full size, but he knew the alien must have been at least as long as he was tall, maybe even longer.

"I'm in a cultural exchange group with a Liir, a Turian and a Human," the thin blue girl replied. "It's like the opening to a bad joke."

"A Human, a Turian, a Liir, and an Asari all walk into a bar…" the Turian girl said with a chuckle. Lee decided he liked her.

"And then what?" the Liir asked, tilting its head. "Why is that humorous?"

"Oh, it's not really a joke, I was just…you know what?" she said, apparently giving up on trying to explain it to the aquatic alien. "We'll come back to it. Cultural humor might be a bit advanced for use right now. Maybe we should just start with introductions?"

"Sure," Lee agreed, seizing on any opportunity to get away from the awkward topic. "My name is Lee. I'm fifteen years old, and I'm from Saint Gregory's Secondary School, on Beowulf. I like public speaking and psychology."

"My name is Ishii, and I am forty three years of age," said the Liir, its face tentacles waving slowly. "I am currently swimming with Elder Suubu."

"And?" the Turian pressed impudently. "What do you do for fun?"

"I…enjoy making people happy," the Liir decided after a short pause. "I also like music."

"What, no genocide? I'm shocked," replied the Asari waspishly. The rest of the group glared at her, but she shrugged them off. "Oh whatever. Like you weren't thinking it. Anyway, I'm Andile. I'm fifty nine, homeschooled, blah blah, and I want to be a Commando. Next."

"Well, so much for racial stereotypes," the Turian muttered, loudly enough to be audible to everyone. "My name is Galetilia, Gal for short, and I'm currently finishing up at the Oma Ker Naval Academy. I'm only thirteen, so I guess I'm the baby of this group. Once I finish my first tour of duty, I'm hoping to transfer to engineering full time."

"A Turian engineer? Shouldn't you be out trying to bomb some primitive species into extinction for sneezing incorrectly?" asked Andile, her voice dripping sarcasm. Lee decided he didn't like her.

"I don't know. Shouldn't you be contemplating the universe and taking your clothes off for strangers?" Gal shot back, her thin mandibles flaring in an alien smirk.

"Okay, I think we should find something else to talk about now," Lee said hastily, before Andile could reply. "Um…so why did you all decide you wanted to be part of the Youth United program? I mean, I like public speaking, so I'm doing it because talking with a bunch of al-I mean xeno-sentients, sounded like fun."

"Dang, Pinkie here's politically correct and everything!" laughed the Turian, before her eyes suddenly widened. "Oh crap. 'Pinkie' isn't some kind of slur, right? I didn't mean it like that, it's just you've got all that soft-looking pink skin, and-"

"It's okay," he replied, holding his hands up placatingly. "I'm not offended. I've never talked to any xeno-sentients before, so I'm not even sure what kind of human slurs there are anyway."

Gal smiled, a strange expression since she didn't have any lips. It was mostly in the mandibles, but her eyes and body posture made it unmistakably a sign of amusement.

"You can say alien. Honest, I'm not offended. How about you guys? You have a problem with anyone saying 'alien'?"

"No," Ishii clicked softly. "Though it is confusing. I cannot sense the intention behind your words. Much of the context is lost to me. I am sorry that I understand so little, but this is a very strange way of communicating. Is this truly how you Deaf live all the time?"

"Actually, yeah. This feels about the same as being in the same room and talking for me," Lee explained. "Is it that weird to you?"

"Yes. I have spoken through video communication before, but always to others of my family," the Liir confessed. "I cannot read your expressions as I would theirs. And many of your comments are puzzling. You say one thing, but act as though you said another. Why is this?"

"It's sarcasm. Sarcasm is…um, it's a form of verbal humor that relies on the contrast between your words and how you say them. Sometimes it can be funny, but sometimes it can be hurtful if you don't use it right."

Lee shot Andile a swift glare, but Ishii floundered, its tentacles wavering as if in some kind of distress.

"Then maybe this is not the right place for me," it said, its chirpy voice downcast. "I obviously do not understand vocal communication as well as I thought I did. I do not want to hurt any of you with the wrong words."

"Relax, Ishii. We've got thick skins, see?" Gal said, taping a claw against her plates. "We'll be fine, honest."

"What does skin thickness-ah, I see. It was a joke."

"See, you aren't doing so bad," commented Lee reassuringly. "We'll try not to use as much sarcasm though, so you can keep up."

"Thank you. I apologize for inconveniencing you all."

"Ah, forget-I mean, don't worry about it," the Turian said, correcting herself in midsentence. "Anyway, our pink friend over there asked us all a question a bit ago. Hmm. Why did I sign up for Youth United? Pretty simple, actually. The Engineering Corp tries to look for cadets who aren't just grunts. You have to be pretty bright to get any of the good postings. So I signed up because I thought it might make me seem more intellectual."

"Well, you have to have good test scores to even be allowed to apply for the program, so I'm sure you're going to get a good post," Lee said, before a realization hit him. "I mean, we have to have good scores at my school. I'm not sure if it's any different at your Academy."

"Not really, no. I've got the best written scores in my unit. But it's always nice to pad out your pre-service record while you can, you know? Plus it'll make my parents happy. They're always pestering me about the importance of a good first assignment," she said with another alien smile. "Anyway, enough about me. How about you, Fishy? Is it okay if I call you that?"

"It's a pun, right? Because I look like a fish, and my name sounds like the word for fish in the Human English language?" the Liir asked tentatively. When Gal nodded, its tentacles spread in what Lee assumed was satisfaction. "Then yes. Please call me Fishy if that would make you happy."

"As a matter of fact, it would! So, Fishy, why did you sign up for this whole thing?"

"Suubu suggested it. He said that I seemed to be brooding on my birth-mother, and thought that some outside perspective would help me."

"Um, stop me if I'm saying something offensive, but don't you Liir usually just like…fix that kind of thing?" Lee asked awkwardly. "You know, with your mind powers?"

"Suubu could have removed the anxiety from my mind, yes. Or he could have sent me to the shore, where one of the Sineaters could have helped me."

Lee shuddered instinctively at the mention of the Zuul. Like everyone else, he'd seen the vids of Ground Force Marines clearing Zuul slave worlds. What they did to people…it was too horrible for words. The Liir and the Council said the Prester Zuul were different, but his father said that they were the same mind raping bastards they'd always been. He'd said a lot of other things besides that, but Sister Wong told him he wasn't supposed to say or even think about thing like that. He focused back on Ishii.

"I thought Suubu would have just taken away my worry, but he said that I was yet young. He wanted to see if I could find my way back on my own. So I am here to find my way."

"What happened to your birth-mother?" Andile asked, suddenly breaking her aloof silence.

"Hey!" Lee objected. "I think that's a little personal, don't you? Ishii, Andile is being rude. You don't have to talk about it if you don't want to."

"No," it said with a shake of its head. "It may help if you all know. My mother drowned, almost ten years ago."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," Lee said in sympathy and amazement. Liir breathed air, so he guessed it was possible for one of them to drown. He thought they were really good swimmers, but he supposed even the best swimmers had accidents. "Did something trap her underwater, or-"

"Not like that, idiot. It means she Drowned," Adile snapped, placing careful emphasis on the last word. "Its mother is a Black Swimmer."

"Really?" Gal asked excitedly, but her face suddenly fell. Lee could tell exactly what she was thinking. Black Swimmers were rare and among the most feared warriors in the galaxy, maybe even equal to Asari Commandos. But because of how highly the Liir valued their pacifism, they were dead to their own kind. "Oh, Ishii…"

"Is she still…" he struggled to find a word. Culturally and legally, Black Swimmers were dead, so 'alive' might not be the right word here. "Is your birth-mother still active?"

"Yes. I am told he is on Adek. But I am not allowed to call him, and he will not communicate with me. I do not understand," the Liir clicked, its tentacles drooping mournfully. "Why would he leave me and my kindle-father like this? Why is he…hurting people? Killing them? It does not make sense to me."

"Ishii, your mother is a noble person," explained Gal carefully. "I'm sure she-I mean he, I'm sure HE just thought he was protecting you. He didn't want to leave you."

A perverse part of Lee's mind was glad that he wasn't the only one that found the variable gender of the Liir a little confusing, but Ishii's obvious pain was too great to let him focus on that tangent for long.

"But I am not protected. I am in pain! I miss him! If I am hurt, he is hurt, and he is hurting other people, how can he be protecting anyone? All he is doing is causing pain."

"Ishii, if your mother Drowned almost ten years ago, he was probably going to fight the Batarians," Lee suggested. "They were horrible people, slavers and torturers. Who knows how many people your mother saved from them? She did the right thing."

"And just what would you know about that?" Adile snapped angrily. "Keep your damn mouth shut, human."

"Okay, that's it," Gal said angrily, pulling up her omnitool. "I've had it with your bullshit. I'm contacting an instructor."

"Go ahead. I didn't even want to be here in the first place," she snapped, glaring daggers. "You know why I have a problem with you and the human coddling that bastard? My father was a Batarian, you insensitive bitch!"

"What?" Lee asked, as everyone froze in surprise. Ishii's expression was unreadable as ever, but from the way his whiskers were writhing in mid-air, he was obviously very agitated. Gal's eyes were wide with shock, her mandibles stretched to their fullest extent.

"His name was Forvan. He was a preacher, so he was allowed to leave the Hegemony as a missionary. It's how he met my mother," Adile explained, her expression calming but her tone still nasty. "They recalled him, of course, when the Hegemony was kicked off the Citadel. But he wouldn't leave us. He betrayed his people to stay with me and my mother."

"Adile, I-"

"What in any of that sounded like I wanted your opinion, human?" she snapped, and Lee fell silent. She took another breath and kept going as though he hadn't said anything. "Anything you're going to say I've heard before, so save it. And before you ask, my dad never supported slavery. Almost got him killed a few times, according to Mom. He always said 'Cruelty isn't the same thing as strength, Adile'. I still remember the way he smiled when I first lifted something with my biotics."

**She's just rambling now. I think she's lost it.**

The words just appeared in the air beside him, and Lee barely managed to keep himself from jumping. Adile was still lost in her own world, so she hadn't noticed. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Gal subtly moving her fingers as though manipulating an invisible omnitool. Lee hadn't even known you could do that. She was good.

**Should I call somebody? This is going way off the rails.**

To his own surprise, he shook his head. Adile was definitely being rude, but from a certain point of view, this really was the kind of thing Youth United was about. He wished his father would have gotten him the xenopsychology books he'd asked for, then they'd at least have an idea of how Asari processed grief and loss. But his father had just said 'the only think ya need to know about how aliens think is that they're all bastards and crazy as shit', and that was that. Still, while she may have been a bit of an ass, Lee could see that Adile did have a point. Maybe if he could get her to calm down, she and Ishii could talk their problems through together. They were supposed to talk about current cultural issues, after all…

"Did your father die from the Plague?" he asked, bracing himself for her inevitable violent response. He knew this was the wrong thing to ask, but he needed the conversation to move in this direction before he could do anything else.

"No, it was a freak aircar accident. Yes it was the Plague!" the Asari retorted. "And you know what gets me? We lived on the Citadel. The Citadel. Why the hell would you Liir bastards release your virus there? The Hegemony didn't even have an embassy!"

"The Eldest of the Black planned our attacks," Ishii stated solemnly. "I do not know why the Citadel was included as a target."

"Adile, Ishii was younger than you when the Extermination happened." Lee kept his tone level and neutral. "Don't take this out on him. He hates it just as much as you do."

"Sure he does. Heh. 'The Batarian Extermination.' Funny name. Like the Batarians were vermin, just pests we're better off without." She smirked, a nasty expression that showed all her teeth. "You know what really gets me? How, when Ishii told us his sad little story, you all just sat there and tried to make what the Liir did a good thing. 'The Batarians were slavers.' 'The Liir were protecting everyone.' They murdered billions of innocent people in cold fucking blood! The Batarians begged for their lives and his people just cut them down like rabid varren!"

She looked genuinely furious now, but took a deep breath, returning to her normal, aloof expression.

"So that's my sad little story. Are we all best friends now? Are you 'culturally and intellectually enlightened'?"

"I'm enlightened to the fact that you're a bitch," Gal replied calmly, crossing her arms and glaring at Adile. "So your dad's dead. Boo freaking hoo! Did you just sleep through the first part of this? Ishii feels horrible about it! What, did you just decide to rub salt in his wounds for the fun of it?"

"No. She is right. I am not blameless in this," the Liir cut in. "I could sense the turmoil in my birth-mother. If I had tried harder to reach him, if I had been better able to hear, he might not have turned from us. It might not have been enough to save your father, Adile, but perhaps I could have saved someone else's father, if I had been stronger."

"Ishii, you can't possibly be expected to-"

"Can't we, though?" Lee asked, bringing the attention back to him. "Look, I know we're all kids. We aren't going to change the world. But Ishii's right. We can't just look at the stuff going on around us and shrug it off just because we're supposedly too young to do anything about it."

"That's a nice sentiment, Pinkie, but I'm not really sure it's practical."

"Screw practical! If we only did what was practical, nothing would ever get done." He was on a roll now, he knew. All eyes were on him, and he felt energized. This was what he lived for. "Look, I'm not sure about you guys, but human history is full of people who decided to stand up against impossible odds, not because they thought they could win, but because it was the right thing to do."

"Hey, I'm a Turian. We're all about lost causes and fighting to the end," Gal agreed. "But I still don't see your point."

"My point is that maybe Ishii's mother wouldn't have gone to fight the Batarians if he'd known that one of his son's friends had a Batarian father. Maybe if someone had stepped in and helped the Liir with their pirate problem, they wouldn't have had to fight the Batarians at all. We aren't important now, but we will be soon. Ishii and Adile have a couple decades before they're adults, but Gal and I only have a few years left. We can't bring back Adile's father or Ishii's mother. But we can make sure that no one else's parents have to die."

"Because in your fifteen years of life, you've learned so very much about galactic politics?" Adile asked skeptically. "Wishful thinking isn't going to make problems go away, Human."

"We're looking at the root of our problems right now. Adile, you hate what happened to the Batarians. So does Ishii. But you attacked him anyway, even though he had the exact same opinion you did, because he was a Liir. That's the problem. We keep thinking about Us vs Them. There is no Them! There's just Us!"

He paused and took a deep breath.

"Let me share something about my parents. My dad? He's a total racist. My mom cooked a crab for dinner once, and he loved it, right up until he found out it was a Tarkasian crab. He made us throw it out, and now he makes sure we don't eat anything that isn't imported from a Human colony. People like him keep going on and on about the purity of Human culture, how contact with aliens causes weakness and stagnation, and you know what? It was a freaking crab. Human, Tarkasian…it didn't matter which planet it came from or who caught it, it was still just a crab."

"I'm pretty sure that's an oversimplification," Gal pointed out. "Depending on how the crab was harvested and where it was from, there could be some serious health concerns connected to it."

"So? Isn't that kind of thing why the Council exists? Universal ecological and health standards would help everybody. But everyone is trying so hard to screw each other over, no one will agree to anything!"

"I can't believe we're even discussing this. It's the Prisoner's Dilemma," Adile sighed, rolling her eyes. "Even if you're only fifteen, you should know how the galaxy works by now."

"The what now?" Gal asked, confused.

"Prisoner's Dilemma. It's a…philosophical problem," Lee explained, trying to find the best way to phrase it. "Two criminals have been captured, but there is enough evidence to only sentence them for a year in prison. So the police offer a deal: if one betrays the other, the traitor will go free, while the other will serve three years in prison. But if they both betray each other, they'll each serve two years."

"It does not translate very well," Ishii commented. "It was explained to me before, and I still do not fully understand it. Why would confinement for several years cause the criminal to reform? And even if it did, should the criminal not be sentenced to confinement until he or she is reformed, rather than an arbitrary period of time?"

"It's just a behavioral problem, don't overthink it," Adile said, and Lee was shocked to find absolutely no sarcasm in her tone. Maybe he was getting through to her after all. "It's supposed to show why two rational people won't cooperate when doing so would be in their best interests. And again, Lee is simplifying things to the point of irrelevancy."

"Am I?" he asked, pressing his point forward. "Humanity doesn't trust the Council. So we build a huge battleship, which is promptly stolen and used to kill billions. The Council doesn't trust Humanity, so they pull all our ships off the hunt for said battleship. Everyone loses."

"Do not bring Thessia into this," the Asari warned. "You can play your little thought games all you want, but I knew people who were on Thessia when it was hit. You can't equate some justifiable concern on the Council's part with the genocidal dreadnought your people built because they were scared we'd kill them in their beds!"

"Was that not Lee's point?" Ishii asked. "Humanity's unwarranted suspicion of aliens drove it to make mistakes that all races must now pay for. Had the Humans trusted the Council, Thessia would not have been attacked."

"Yeah, well if we hadn't trusted Humanity, maybe we would have had defenses in place to blow the damn _Leviathan_ out of the stars," Adile retorted. "Sometimes paranoia is a virtue. Lee can be as optimistic as he wants, but if all Humans were as blindly trusting as he is, they'd be radioactive Hiver chow right now."

"I'm sorry, but did an Asari just imply that all distrust and increased militarization is a good thing?" asked Gal, her mandibles widening skeptically. "Because I'm pretty sure that's what just happened."

"Yeah, a pro-military Asari. I'm sure I'm just as rare as a Turian that wants to build ships instead of shoot people," she countered dryly. The Turian girl shrugged good-naturedly, conceding the point. "For the past millennium, we Asari have sat on our blue asses and done jack-all. We let you Turians run the show and patrol the galaxy, so we could do what? Strip in bars and contemplate our navels?"

"I'm sorry, what does that mean?" Ishii interrupted. "A navel is a remnant from the mammalian umbilical cord. Does it have some sort of philosophical importance, that you would need to think about it for long periods of time?"

"It's derogatory slang for meditation," explained Gal swiftly, before turning back to Adile. "And what's your point? You think the Asari should be ruling the galaxy or something?"

"Don't be ridiculous. You sound like that stupid Human book, going on and on about how Asari are running some great galactic conspiracy," she replied, rolling her eyes. "I don't think we should rule the galaxy. I just want the Asari to pull their damn weight again. Nobody takes us seriously anymore. They just think we're…ugh, what's that human word? Hippies? The Asari have the best ships and soldiers in the galaxy, bar none. It's high time we reminded everyone of that fact."

"See, that exactly the wrong kind of thinking!" Lee exclaimed, though secretly he was quite happy. He had been right. Adile was coming out of her shell, and was debating honestly instead of yelling or dismissing them sarcastically. She'd even used his name instead of just calling him 'Human'. "Who are you trying to prove all this to? It shouldn't matter whose military is the strongest! You don't want a war, right? We don't want a war either. So why waste billions on warships no one wants to use anyway when we could, I don't know, cure Corpalis Syndrome or something?"

"I can answer that in three words. Rachni. Krogan. Zuul," Adile stated confidently, ticking them off on her fingers. "Not everyone out there is as peace-loving as you want to think they are, Lee. Like it or not, it's a dangerous galaxy out there."

"I'm not saying we don't need warships. I'm saying we don't need any more of them," he corrected. "The Turians have what, forty five dreadnoughts? The Asari have twenty two, and even the Salarians have sixteen. Heck, SolForce alone has eighteen. How many more do we have to have before we're 'safe?'"

"I don't know. Why don't you ask the Enforcer?"

"I'm going to have to go with her on this one, Lee. Sorry." Adile smirked in victory at Gal's admition, but she silenced the Asari with a look. "Oh shove it, I still think you're a bitch. But that Peacekeeper bastard's already eaten five of our dreadnoughts and Spirits know how many cruisers and frigates. I'm not sure if you all have looked at a map lately, but I'm kind of living right in its line of fire. I wouldn't mind a few more big ships floating outside my window right now."

"Wait, really?"

"Well, they can't really track it, but it's definitely been moving this way," said Gal. "Oma Ker is a decently sized trade hub, and about five years ago they started using it as a graveyard for all our older ships that are in mothballs until they can get energy weapon refits. Actually, the academy is built right into the shipyards. It's really cool. That was one of the reasons I transferred in, because I love being around the ships. I might end up regretting it if the Enforcer shows up though."

"I'm sure you don't have anything to worry about," Lee said reassuringly. "The Council's probably getting together with the other races as we speak. They'll put together a big fleet and have it taken care of before you know it."

"I'm trying to decide if you really are that naïve, or if your parents just dropped you when you were a baby," Adile mused scathingly. "I'm leaning toward dropped."

"Why would Lee need to have brain damage to believe that the Council is trying to stop the Peacekeeper?" asked Ishii. "I do not understand."

"Yeah, what else is new?" she muttered, and then sighed in resignation. "I'm sure the Council is going to try to put together a mixed fleet to fight the Peacekeeper. And I'm also sure that not a single Orion race going to agree to help."

"What? That's ridiculous! Of course we would help!" objected Lee. "The Enforcer is a threat to us too! Besides, we're still allied with the Heirarchy, right? Races protect their allies."

"If the Enforcer is such a threat, name a single Human colony it's hit," Adile said simply. When Lee didn't respond, she smiled thinly. "Yeah, that's right. It hasn't, has it? The only places it's attacked have been Turian and Salarian colonies, with a couple Freeholds thrown in. So why would SolForce send its men and ships to get destroyed when they could make the Turians do it themselves?"

"Maybe because it's the right thing to do?"

"Okay, now I know your parents dropped you. Is nothing I'm saying sinking in at all? SolForce doesn't care! They think dead Turians and wrecked Turian ships are good! This big community of intergalactic sisterhood that you're imagining? It doesn't exist. It really is just Us vs Them, and guess what?" She pointed a finger at Gal and then at herself. "We're Them!"

"That does not make sense," Ishii stated, his face-tentacles drifting on an invisible current. "Why would the Humans believe dead Turians are good? They are allies. They have worked together in the past."

"Please. They worked together because it was convenient, or it would look good. The Turians don't like that SolForce keeps building warships. And the Humans won't be happy until they have more ships than anyone else, because we aliens OBVIOUSLY can't be trusted."

"But you just said that increased militarization was good. Why are you criticizing the Humans for it now?"

"I'm not criticizing. I'm trying to explain why none of you Orion races really wants to work with us. Militarization make sense. Expecting someone else to help you out, just because you asked nicely? That doesn't."

"Of course people will help if you ask," the Liir stated in confusion. "Why wouldn't they?"

"I think this is an empathy thing, Ishii," Gal said carefully. "Most non-psychic races do value helpfulness and generosity as virtues, but because we can't feel the pain of others directly, we tend to focus on our own problems first. I'm not saying it's a good thing, but it happens a lot. Especially in Tarkasian and Human culture, individual achievement is usually prioritized over collective good."

"What? That's…I do not understand. Lee, is this true?"

"Local cultural traditions place different amounts of emphasis on it, but a little, yeah. I think it has something to do with ambition," he said, watching Ishii's whiskers twist in agitation. "The general idea is that increased individuality leads to greater freedom of thought. If individual achievement is more highly rewarded, individuals will try harder to excel, resulting in competition and a stronger whole. The Hivers do something similar with the way their different Clans interact, and the Asari have it as a big part of their economic system."

"But does this not lead to inequality? In all contests, there is a winner and a loser. Would constant competition not lead to suffering for weaker members of your race?"

"Kind of, yeah. We've tried a lot of different ways to fight that, but most of them didn't work very well," Lee agreed. "For now, it's…an acceptable loss, I guess. Until we can figure out a better way."

"I am very confused," Ishii said sadly, visibly drooping.

"It's a non-psychic thing," Gal said reassuringly. "I wouldn't worry about it too much. We have just as much trouble understanding how Liir culture works."

"Look, we're getting away from my original point," Lee announced, steering the conversation away from the minefield that was psionics. They'd already used up a lot of their time, and they were talking about enough issues for one session. "I'm not saying that things aren't a little messed up. I'm saying that they don't have to be."

"Unless you have some device that will give us unlimited colonization space, food, and resources, I'm pretty sure they do," Adile countered. "Look, I'd love to live in a galaxy where we all trust each other, live in harmony, and all that other crap. But the last couple of years have made it pretty clear that we don't live in that kind of galaxy. My people tried the whole peaceful optimist thing. We got ignored, and then nuked for our trouble. So I'm going to say you Humans had the right idea. What do you call it? Gunboat diplomacy?"

"You're treating that this conflict like it's some kind of universal constant. If you're just going to be cynical and give up, of course nothing is going to change," reasoned Lee. "I'm surprised at you, Adile. You and Ishii have the most to lose here. I'm only going to live to be about a hundred. But you two are going to have to deal with this for ten times as long. Before we came along, the different races got along without any incidents for centuries. We know it can be done, so why can't we be the ones do it?"

"Because you did come along. We didn't go looking for you, you found us. And because you did, the past ten years have been the bloodiest in Council history. So say you're right. Say love and friendship will conquer all, and everyone stops building warships, just like you want. What's going to happen in a thousand years when the next bunch of violent thugs wander into Council space? What, do we just wait for them to calm down while they kill tens of billions too? The only way to end the cycle is to never let it start. To be strong enough that the idea of fighting you would be the same as committing suicide."

"The Council tried that," pointed out Gal dryly. "The Turian Navy alone outnumbered any navy in the Orion Arm at least two to one after First Contact. That's not counting the Salarian and Asari fleets. And if anything, that's only made the Orion races build even more ships to try and keep up with us."

"Then we build more too," Adile countered, with a shrug that did interesting things to the bare parts of her torso. "Our economies are larger, we can make ships faster than the Orion Arm can."

"At what cost?" asked Lee. "Even cruisers are insanely expensive. That's money that could be going to civil projects, or to lower taxes. The kind of rampant military spending you're talking about has a price, and the average person is going to wind up paying it."

"Better living poorly than living in a tent because some alien super-ship dropped an antimatter bomb on your house. I'll bet there are a lot of people on Thessia that wish they'd voted for a bigger defense budget right now. There are millions more who are too dead to even wish for that much."

"You cannot keep bringing Thessia into this. That was a freak occurrence. Tragic, but hardly something that would indicate any kind of larger trend. The kind of long-term expenditure you're talking about might cripple the galactic economy, and then what-" Gal began, but stopped in mid-sentence as something happened behind her. Lee couldn't see or hear was going on, but the young Turian spun around in frantic haste, a shocked expression on her painted face. "No way! It can't-"

Her image blinked out, replaced by a flashing red icon with only two words:

**Signal Lost**

"No…" Adile gasped in horror. "Please no… I didn't mean it! Goddess, I swear, I didn't mean it! Don't let it be the Enforcer. Please!"

"It may not be what we fear. It might simply be normal interference," Ishii reasoned, but even through its utterly alien expressions, Lee could tell it didn't really believe what it was saying.

Pulling up his omnitool, he connected to the room's internal computers. The nuns didn't let them surf the extranet during school hours, but he and the other students had figured out ways around their blocks within the first month. His fingers shaking, Lee pulled up the first extranet news site he could find.

The entire first page was taken up by a single video, with **Oma Ker** **Live Feed** stenciled on the top left. The planet itself was quite beautiful, a slowly spinning mix of blue and green in the background. But he barely even noticed it as he focused on the action in front of the camera. His heart fell. He could see the huge shipyards were Gal had said her academy was located.

They were on fire.


	43. The Battle of Oma Ker (Codex)

_Well, it's about time we got ourselves a space battle, don't you think? On the one hand, this is the first time I've ever done a space battle from start to finish, and it's a really big one. But since it's a codex, it's going to be a bit dry. Still, I think it holds up pretty well. Hard-core fans of space combat may need to suspend their disbelief for some of the tactics used, as some are more cinematic than realistic. Blame Artistic License, and the fact that a more realistic fight would be boring as hell._

_This codex also wraps up two of the lingering questions from my last chapter: who attacked Gal, and did she survive? I won't spoil it, but I will say that writing her and her friends really was a total blast. They'll definitely be coming back sooner or later. _

_Anyway, reviews and comments are always appreciated. Read, enjoy, and I'll see you in a bit for the next story chapter!_

* * *

**Battle of Oma Ker**

Part of the Enforcer Conflict

**Date: **9.10.2509 CE (14.2.4114 HCE, 3.49.1046 TCE, 24.9.2185 CCE)

**Location:** Aethon Cluster/Nura System/Oma Ker High Orbit

**Belligerents: **Turian Hierarchy/Salarian Union/SolForce, Enforcer Vessel

**Commanders:** Calvena Ennilienus (Turian Hierarchy), Mahann Caejio (Salarian Union), Maka Paraone (SolForce), Stellar Generation Prime Intelligence (Enforcer Vessel)

**Prelude to Battle:**

In 2173 CCE, analysts for the Turian Hierarchy issued a classified report on the state of the Hierarchy's naval assets to Primarch Fedorian. The report, which was released publically in 2179, revealed that while the Hierarchy maintained a strong edge in quantity of ships and in long range weaponry, its vessels lacked powerful close firepower. In simulated naval engagements, nine out of ten Turian casualties occurred at short range. To combat this, in 2176 Primarch Fedorian announced a twenty-year plan to completely overhaul the Hierarchy's navy. This plan introduced many new ship designs and tactics, as well as drastically reorganized the Hierarchy's existing assets.

When the Hierarchy's new ship designs performed well in a 2178 joint training exercise with SolForce, the decision was made to retire many older Turian vessels until they could be upgraded to newer designs. These refits were planned to coincide with the existing maintenance schedules for these ships, so the Hierarchy's fleet strength would only be reduced by ten percent at any given time.

Many of the Hierarchy's larger naval yards were occupied with the construction of new ships, so older fuel and maintenance bases were converted into impromptu storage and refit areas. Though this delay was originally theorized to add three years onto the fleet's planned refit schedule, Hierarchy engineers rose to the challenge, and with the assistance of the Vol Protectorate and Elkoss Combine they were able to keep all refits on schedule.

Originally a moderately-sized spaceport and refueling station, Oma Ker received its own naval yard in 2179. The vast majority of the Turian Eighth Fleet's ships, as well as several elements from the Sixty Fourth and Eighty First Flotillas, were interred there by 2184. Like many of the newer shipyards, they were designed to be temporary structures, and lacked many of the integrated defenses found in dedicated shipyards like the ones at Palaven.

Following the appearance of the Enforcer Vessel in 2185 and the subsequent defeats of Council and Orion forces at the Battle of Relay 289, the Azure Valley Nesting Fleet Massacre, and the Battle of the Aethon Cluster, Turian Naval Command decided a shift in tactics was required. Though eight different fleets had been vectored to the area in hopes of intercepting the Enforcer Vessel, they were redirected to various strong-points in hopes of forcing it to attack an entrenched position.

As its large naval yards made it a large target, the Second and Tenth Turian Fleets were assigned to protect Oma Ker, including the dreadnoughts _Petanus_, _Raminius_, _Sandos_, and _Barrius_. Elements of the Salarian Third Fleet, originally deployed to rendezvous with the Turian Sixth Fleet, were also rerouted to Oma Ker. SolForce Naval Task Force 21, which included the Atlantas-class dreadnought _New York,_ was also in the system for refueling. Originally deployed in late 2184 to hunt the _SFS Leviathan_, the Task Force had been recalled by Council request and was making its way back to SolForce space.

**Battle:**

Admiral Ennilienus, anticipating that the Enforcer could teleport into the system at any point in space, had divided the Second and Tenth fleets into several dozen flotillas and dispatched them on different patrol routes throughout the system. As the Enforcer had always prioritized the largest enemy ships as targets, two fleets' dreadnought compliments were kept within range of Oma Ker's terrestrial and orbital guns, as well as near the patrol paths of several different flotillas.

As his ships were equipped with advanced sensor equipment, Senior Captain Caejio had deployed them near the edge of the system. Though he had hoped to be able to detect some trace of the Enforcer's approach or teleportation method, analysis of the data collected by his ships had yet to reveal any useful information about those subjects.

Task Force Commander Paraone's ships were still taking on additional supplies from the shipyards. As such, many of the SolForce ships in the system were docked when combat began. Due to the extended nature of their deployment, TFC Paraone had allowed his crews to take shore leave on the station and planet in rotating shifts, complicating matters further.

The Enforcer Vessel teleported into the system at 1749 GST, appearing near the Oma Ker shipyards. It appeared on the far side of the yards, preventing the planet's terrestrial weapons and most of its orbital defenses from engaging it. As soon as it arrived, it issued a challenge and immediately opened fire on the shipyards with its projectors and lancers. These first attacks appear to have specifically targeted the shipyards' fuel lines, as the majority of the naval yards were reporting internal fires and structural damage within the first minutes of combat.

Admiral Ennilienus immediately moved to take overall command, citing the need for a unified chain of command to direct the defense. Though Senior Captain Caejio complied, TFC Paraone refused due to standing SolForce policies against aliens commanding humans. As such, the SolForce ships were unable to coordinate effectively with the other defenders.

Due to their proximity to the shipyards, the Turian dreadnoughts were quickly able to move into firing position and engage the Enforcer. Admiral Ennilienus had separated his four dreadnoughts to prevent it from destroying all of them at once, and to stop the Enforcer's shields from easily blocking their shots. As soon as it began taking fire, the Enforcer ceased attacking the shipyards, instead moving at high speed to engage the _Barrius_. The dreadnought was destroyed almost instantly, but was successfully able to lure the Enforcer into the arcs of Oma Ker's defensive satellites.

Meanwhile, the SolForce ships began launching with what crew they could recall. Though the Enforcer's attacks had critically compromised its structure, the majority of the shipyard's garrison refused to evacuate, instead focusing on launching the SolForce ships with what crew could be located. Through the efforts of the Turian garrison, all SolForce ships were eventually launched with at least seventy five percent of their crew. Shortly after the last SolForce ship departed, the Oma Ker naval yards were annihilated by a combination of fuel explosions and antimatter detonations. The explosions and debris also destroyed all ships remaining inside the yards.

To buy his remaining ships more time to launch, TFC Paraone ordered his remaining ships to engage the Enforcer Vessel. Aware of the danger the Enforcer's primary beam weapon represented, he moved his cruisers and battleriders in first in an attempt to allow the _New York_ to approach from its ventral side. Though this attack did prevent the Enforcer from engaging the _Raminius_ it fell back, the proximity of Human vessels to the Enforcer prevented the Turian defenses from bombarding it from a distance.

Forced to choose between exposing itself to the SolForce dreadnought or its smaller escorts, it opted to target the _New York_, eliminating it before it was able to fire more than a single volley. The remaining Human ships immediately seized this opportunity, and were successfully able to destroy several of the Enforcer's turrets before it turned to engage them again.

Noticing the high rate of attrition among the SolForce ships, Admiral Ennilienus ordered the Salarian vessels to provide support by engaging the Enforcer at close range. Though they had microjumped into Oma Ker's orbit when it first appeared, the Salarian ships had remained cloaked, scanning the Enforcer in the hopes of finding a weak point to exploit. Though Captain Caejio's forces were primarily sensor ships, he agreed to the order and moved his forces into attack range.

By the time the Salarian forces entered the battle, Enforcer's heavy emitters had destroyed or disabled over two thirds of the Human battleriders. Almost half of the Task Force's heavier ships had been crippled or destroyed, though Paraone's command cruiser was still intact. At Ennilienus' urgings, Paraone pulled his ships back and linked up with the rest of his fleet.

Coordinating with the Turian defenses, the Salarian ships were successfully able to hold the Enforcer off for several minutes. Though their cloaks were ineffective against it, Caejio was able to position his forces such that the vessel could not pursue the fleeing Human ships without exposing itself to Salarian or Turian fire. Unfortunately, Enforcer's emitters took a heavy toll on the lightly armored ships, and Caejio was eventually forced to disengage.

While the Enforcer was occupied, Ennilienus moved his ships into position. He placed them in four separate battlegroups: Primus, Secundus, Tertius, and Quartus. The dreadnoughts, including Ennilienus' flagship the _Sandos_, were left operating independently as bait. The Turian's carriers were also detached, along with over a third of the two fleets' frigates. Previous experience fighting the Enforcer had proven that frigates and other small craft suffered greatly when put against its emitters, so he planned to hold them in reserve until enough of the emitters could be destroyed.

Ennilienus then requested that Paraone split his remaining ships and deploy behind the Turian formations. Though the official reason for this request is unknown, testimony from the _Sandos'_ surviving crew suggests that the admiral planned to have the SolForce vessels provide support when the Enforcer entered close range. Whatever the reason for this request, Paraone declined, instead pulling his surviving ships back to Oma Ker's node point and withdrawing from the system.

Task Force 21's departure coincided with the dispersal of the Salarian ships. Caejio himself had been seriously injured when one of the Enforcer's lancers struck his ship's bridge. Despite this, he refused multiple requests for him to retire to medbay, instead choosing to remain at his post. Due to the extensive damage the Salarian forces had suffered, Ennilienus forbade them from participating in any further fighting. He instead ordered them to scatter and remain within sensor range to scan for weaknesses within the Enforcer.

No longer engaged, the Enforcer found itself bombarded by fire from five directions: Ennilienus' four battlegroups, and from the planet itself. In response, it retracted its weaponry and teleported to the far side of the planet. There, it began engaging the planet's orbital and terrestrial defenses without interference from the defending fleets.

After analyzing the situation, Ennilienus concluded that the Enforcer's movement was intended to force him to split his forces in two. If he moved his ships in unison the Enforcer would simply circle the planet, destroying its orbital defenses while using Oma Ker itself as a shield. In light of these facts, he made the controversial decision to hold position, effectively abandoning the far side of the planet.

As predicted, once the defenses on Oma Ker's far side had been destroyed it teleported again, this time appearing in the midst of Battlegroup Secundus. Ennilienus immediately ordered Secundus to scatter, allowing the other battlegroups to fire on the Enforcer. As the Turian ships dispersed, it teleported again, appearing in the midst of Battlegroup Tertius. The vessel repeated this pattern several times, firing a volley or two before retracting its weapons and teleporting away before the Turian fleets and defenses could get clear shots.

Realizing that the Enforcer could maintain this pattern indefinitely, Ennilienus gave orders for his forces to hold their positions the next time the Enforcer teleported. When it appeared inside Battlegroup Secundus and the Turian ships failed to scatter, the Enforcer fully engaged. Ordering Secundus to engage and buy as much time as possible, Ennilienus ordered the other three battlegroups, as well as the detached dreadnoughts and carriers, to assume a formation inside the planet's defense grid. He ordered the surviving Salarian vessels to join the formation and focus on putting out as many ECM as they could.

Unable to distance themselves from the Enforcer without exposing the developing formation, Battlegroup Secundus was forced to engage at nearly point-blank range. The Enforcer's projectors and maneuverability gave it a massive advantage, and its main gun quickly eliminated almost all of the battlegroup's heavier vessels.

In an attempt to buy more time, Ennilienus deployed the frigates he had been holding in reserve. Rather than have them move in wings of three or four, he broke with regulations and ordered them to attack individually, maintaining constant pressure on the Enforcer. This caused several problems for the Turian pilots, as they were forced to constantly maneuver to avoid one another in the crowded airspace around the Enforcer. The frigates were unable to use their full speed, exposing them to more fire as they made attack runs. But the chaotic attack prevented the Enforcer from using its shields to their best effect, and held it in place.

When the rest of his forces had regrouped, Ennilienus ordered his fleet to fire on the Enforcer. In another controversial decision, he commanded his frigates to continue their attack runs even though they would likely be hit by the barrage. Realizing its predicament, the Enforcer attempted to teleport again, but not before taking several direct hits.

Reappearing in the midst of the Turian formation, it immediately deployed its weaponry and destroyed the _Petanus_. Fortunately Ennilienus had anticipated that it would focus on the largest ships, and as such had scattering his carriers and dreadnoughts throughout the formation so they could not be easily targeted. The formation had been built through Oma Ker's defense perimeter, and several powerful defensive satellites were woven into it. It was built not to attack external targets, but to allow his ships to focus their fire inward at anything that might force its way into the formation. When the Enforcer teleported in, Ennilienus' trap was sprung and he ordered his entire fleet to orient toward the Enforcer to engage, beginning the final stage of the battle for Oma Ker.

Again, the Enforcer's agility and close range firepower gave it an edge, but it was hoped that sheer weight of numbers would be able to offset this. Apparently aware of this, the Enforcer attempted to use other vessels for cover whenever possible, closing to within a hundred meters of its targets on several occasions. It repeatedly resorted to ramming nearby ships with its shield arc, making safe targeting even more difficult for the defenders. The formation had been set up loosely enough to easily allow the majority of its ships to fire past one another, but this broke down quickly.

After action analysis of the combat footage and surviving sensor data revealed that the formation's collapse was not due to any failure on the part of Admiral Ennilienus or his subordinates. The Enforcer Vessel had made several complex maneuvers and specifically targeted certain ships shortly after appearing inside the Turian fleet. Individually, these actions seem random, but when viewed over time it becomes apparent that the Enforcer was attacking key points in the formation with the goal of destabilizing it.

As the formation collapsed, the defenders were no longer able to use their larger numbers to full effect. Dead and crippled ships clogged fire lanes, and the Enforcer's superior movement prevented the Turian ships from maneuvering to more advantageous positions. Despite the obvious disadvantage, Ennilienus ordered his ships to maintain their attack, fearing that if they disengaged the Enforcer would again go after the most isolated Turian vessels and slowly whittle away their fleet.

Instead, he deployed his last reserves, the attack craft he had gathered from the fleet's carriers and Oma Ker's transorbital defensive squadrons. Surrounded by debris as it was, he hoped that the Enforcer's emitters would not be able to attack as effectively, preserving his bombers long enough to make a difference.

Ennilienus' hopes were rewarded. The Enforcer Vessel had already lost several heavy emitter turrets to targeted strikes by SolForce and Turian forces, and the many ruined ships it relied on for cover also absorbed several arcs from its emitters. The large number of fighters and bombers overwhelmed its defenses, and the Turian craft were able to mount several effective attack runs.

In response, the Enforcer turned its main guns on the debris around it, clearing an open area for it to engage the attack craft. Rather than recall them and allow it to retreat back into cover, Ennilienus ordered them to continue attacking even as his ships took advantage of this opportunity to bombard the Enforcer with fire from their spinal guns.

As predicted, it swiftly eliminated the Turian attack craft, but was seriously damaged doing so. Over two thirds of its lancers had been put out of action, and its exterior was beginning to show signs of structural damage. Several previously unknown types of exotic particles had begun leaking from the Enforcer's hull, presumably byproducts of its mysterious reactor. Seeing his opportunity, Ennilienus pressed forward, hoping to force it into a battle of attrition.

This fierce melee continued for another hour as the Enforcer systematically carved its way through the determined defenders, slowly hunting down their scattered dreadnoughts and carriers. Clever maneuvering by several squadron leaders had been able to shield the _Sandos_ for the majority of the battle, but in the end Admiral Ennilienus opted to sacrifice his ship in an attempt to expose the Enforcer one more time.

As it closed in, Ennilienus ordered the _Sandos _to move at full thrust to cut the Enforcer off from the rest of his fleet. Knowing it could not disintegrate his ship without sacrificing valuable cover, Ennilienus had the _Sandos _begin a broadside attack while several cruisers moved into position above and below the dreadnought. The Enforcer Vessel responded as the admiral predicted, hammering the _Sandos _with its projectors until the dreadnought was too crippled to fight back. The Enforcer then rolled to engage the approaching cruisers, using the disabled dreadnought to protect its ventral section.

This was the moment Ennilienus had been waiting for. Forwarding targeting coordinates to the rest of his fleet, he then shut down the antimatter containment on his ship's reactor, consuming the entire ship in the resulting explosion. Upon learning of his plan, Caejio requested the admiral leave his ship before deactivating the containment. Ennilienus responded:

"Someday we must all die for the cause, Senior Captain. After all the lives I have sacrificed today, I would be ashamed to call myself a Turian naval officer if I were too cowardly to sacrifice my own as well. _Sandos_ out."

Though the reactor detonation was not strong enough to damage the Enforcer directly, it fully obliterated the remains of the _Sandos_, exposing the Enforcer's ventral section to the Turian fleet. Using the coordinates provided by Admiral Ennilienus, they were able score several penetrating hits, successfully destroying two of its antimatter projectors in a capacitor breach. This damage, though severe, was still not enough to destroy the vessel, which immediately resumed its attack on the surviving defenders.

At this time, joint command fell to Caejio as the ranking officer in the system. Though seven Turian officers outranked him at the outset of the battle, they had all been killed or been forced to resign their commands due to severe injury.

Analyzing the situation, Caejio concluded that victory was no longer possible. The Enforcer had lost over half of its turrets and projectors, but its primary beam weapons were still active and had completely resisted all efforts to knock them out. Though it had begun leaking exotic particles at an accelerated rate, it maintained the same maneuverability and speed it possessed at the beginning of the battle. The vessel had not noticeably adjusted its tactics since the melee began, and continued to advance as it had previously.

These facts led Caejio to conclude that the majority of their damage to the Enforcer had been external, with only a few shots fortunate enough to do serious damage to its interior. With the naval yards already destroyed, there was nothing left of value to defend in the system. Trusting that the Enforcer would continue its previous pattern and not deliberately attack unarmed civilian targets, he ordered the surviving ships to withdraw.

At Caejio's request, the remnants of Oma Ker's orbital and planetary defense grid provided covering fire while the fleet dispersed and made its way to the edge of the system. The Enforcer swiftly knocked out the remaining satellites and planetary cannons, but by this time the majority of the defenders had safely accelerated to FTL speeds. Caejio organized the retreating ships into fourteen different groups, believing that numerous small targets would be harder to intercept than a single large fleet.

This belief held true, and the Enforcer did not follow any of the departing ships. It remained in the system for another hour, combing through the remains of the battle and shipyard and using its main gun to eliminate any wreck not sufficiently damaged. Afterward, it teleported away to parts unknown.

Senior Captain Caejio died of his injuries an hour after his ship left the Nura System.

**Battle Result:** Decisive Enforcer Victory

**Aftermath:**

The defeat at Oma Ker was devastating to the Turian Hierarchy. All told, the Second Fleet lost both its dreadnoughts, its carrier, twenty five of its thirty cruisers, and eighty six of its one hundred frigates. The Tenth Fleet also lost its dreadnoughts and carrier, twenty seven of its thirty cruisers, and seventy eight of its frigates. Including the ships demolished when the Oma Ker naval yards were destroyed, the Hierarchy had lost a total of four dreadnoughts, three carriers, ninety seven cruisers, and two hundred eighty seven frigates, making this the worst defeat in Turian history.

Their allies faired only slightly better. Task Force 21 lost over half of its ships, with almost a third of the remaining vessels forced to retire for extensive repairs. The Salarian elements in the system, having stayed for the duration of the battle, suffered a much higher loss percentage. Seven Salarian cruisers were destroyed, and seventeen frigates.

The Enforcer Vessel did seem to have suffered some serious damage as a result of the battle. On leaving Oma Ker, it did not reappear for fifteen days, until it intervened in a pirate attack by Turian Separatists. Witnesses reported that the vessel still appeared damaged, but that several of its turrets were functional again. The Enforcer has appeared twice since then, attacking only minor targets but always appearing more whole than it had seemed previously.

Several elements of the battle remain extremely controversial. Almost two thousand civilians were killed when the Enforcer bombarded Oma Ker. The Hierarchy faced criticism from several prominent sentient-rights groups for this, as the planet's defenses were built extremely close to civilian centers. Hierarchy officials have rebuffed these accusations, pointing out that the defenses were largely crewed by planetary militia, and their proximity to civilian centers was necessary to allow the crews to swiftly move to their posts.

The late Admiral Ennilienus also came under fire for the several times he ordered his forces to attack when Turian ships were still in the line of fire. Representatives of the Turian Hierarchy refused to comment, though prominent Turian General Corinthus pointed out in an interview that Ennilienus refused to allow his men to fire when allied ships would be hit.

"If Ennilienus was a butcher like everyone is claiming, why was he so careful about not shooting aliens? For all he knew, his restraint might be costing him the battle, but he held back anyway. If that doesn't show an emphasis on ethics over victory, I don't know what would. You criticize him for attacking his own forces, but every Turian sailor on those ships would have gladly given the attack orders themselves if they had been in a position to do so."

In spite of this controversy, Admiral Ennilienus was granted a posthumous two tier promotion, and has been awarded the Nova Cluster for gallantry in battle.

Task Force Commander Paraone's retreat was another point of controversy. A spokesperson for the Turian Hierarchy has officially stated that the Hierarchy does not hold the Human ships' retreat against Paraone or SolForce.

"It is the responsibility of every commander to assess the resources at his or her disposal. If Task Force Commander Paraone believed his surviving force was insufficient to make a useful contribution to the battle, it would be nothing less than his duty to withdraw. We do not fault him for making what he believed to be the only rational decision at the time."

Despite this, many popular extranet pundits were quick to accuse Paraone of cowardice, and several have suggested that the Task Force's refusal to stay and help was motivated by Human racism. Paraone has currently been relieved of his command. SolForce officials stress that this is due to the reorganization required by Task Force 21's heavy losses, and is not any sort of punishment.

Several political groups have also seized on the defeat as evidence that the Turian Hierarchy is no longer able to protect Volus interests. Oma Ker is located within Volus space, and was actually sold to the Turian Hierarchy by the Protectorate in 1153 CE. A spokesperson for the Volus Separatist organization Clan First said in a recent interview:

"What if the Enforcer had attacked Irune, instead of Oma Ker? Should we pin our homeworld's safety on the hope that the Turians will be able to protect us, when they are not even capable of protecting themselves?"

In response, popular political comedian Talis Jan made this statement:

"Marvelous! The time for Volus independence has come at last! Nevermind the years of analysis and diplomacy that people like Kwunu slaved over to make us a protectorate in the first place. I guess all we really needed to be a major military power was a few scathing comments from short-sighting crazies. By all means, Clan First, reveal your masterful defense plan for Irune! I look forward to seeing what will be better than the three Palaven-clan war fleets that are protecting it right now. Perhaps you think we should become a protectorate of SolForce? Because the Earth-clan have proven just how _loyally_ they will stand to defend their alien allies."

A final point of controversy centers around the actions of Cadet Galetilia Nazario. A student at the Oma Ker Naval Academy, Nazario had demonstrated a strong aptitude for engineering and immediately volunteered for emergency service with the rest of her classmates when the Enforcer began its attack. She was assisting with damage control in the shipyard's spinward block when a lancer strike began a cascading failure of the block's fuel containment systems.

The crew attempted to halt the cascade by severing the fuel line, but a previous attack had already disabled the systems that would cut the line. Without these systems, the heavily-armed fuel line could not be severed. Though several attempts were made to halt or slow the failures, Nazario realized they would not be able stop the exploding fuel before it reached the three SolForce cruisers still connected to the spinward block. On her own initiative, she created an improvised demolition charge and used it to collapse a key structural support. Prior damage had already placed the line under considerable stress, and without this support the line snapped completely.

The destruction of this support also ruptured the shipyards' hull, exposing the interior to the vacuum. Automatic bulkheads and mass effect fields prevented the yards from losing pressure, but the damage caused by the collapse trapped Cadet Nazario in an exposed section. The swiftness of the Enforcer's attack had prevented her from donning a vacsuit, and she asphyxiated shortly after the section lost pressure. Testimony from other survivors suggests that Nazario was aware that she would die when the support gave way, but chose to collapse it anyway. Her swift action saved all three cruisers, which were able to later depart the system without damage.

When the story of her sacrifice came to light, it immediately became the focus of a media frenzy. Many pro-peace groups held Nazario's actions up as an example of selfless heroism that crossed national and racial boundaries. Simultaneously, anti-human groups used her to illustrate the perceived racism of Humanity: though she gave her life to save humans, those she saved did not remain to participate in the fight against the Enforcer.

Nazario was recently nominated for the Star of Terra by Steven Hackett, the SolForce Vac Forces Legate. Director Freeborne officially confirmed her nomination, making Nazario the first alien to ever receive the award. The Star was officially presented to Ambassador Orinia of the Turian Hierarchy in a public ceremony on Mars, where she accepted it on Nazario's behalf. This ceremony was heavily protested by many human activist groups, some of whom traveled for several days to voice their displeasure with Director Freeborne's decision. When the popular pro-human group Sol Invictus was accused of racism for some of their actions and statements during the protest, they posted this response.

"No one is saying this girl isn't a hero. But she isn't a Human hero. The Star of Terra is an award meant to recognize Human military achievements above and beyond the call of duty. This girl is not a member of any Human military. She's not even Human. Therefore, by the very definition of the award, she shouldn't be eligible to receive it. Should the girl be rewarded for what she did? Of course. But she should be given a Turian award, not a Human one."

Humanity is not the only race to official recognize Nazario's actions. The Citadel Council announced last week that she would also be receiving the Palladium Star. She is the youngest individual to ever be given this award, and is also the first civilian to receive it. After announcing that she would be receiving the award, Councilor Sparatus had this to say.

"Galetilia Nazario, in many ways, represents the best of what this galaxy has to offer. But she was more than just a hero or a symbol. She was a person. She scored well in mathematics, but poorly in discipline. She had two younger brothers, and by all reports they tormented her constantly. Her instructors reported that her independence and creativity would have made her an excellent field engineer. But according to her friends, who I am told all universally called her Gal, her fondest wish was to one day design a ship for the Turian Navy. She had dreams, a promising career, family, and friends. But she threw all of it away in an instant to save hundreds of sentients she had never met and owed no loyalty to. As prestigious as this award is, no medal could ever properly reward such selfless sacrifice. It now falls to us to ensure that her sacrifice was not in vain. The Enforcer may have slain a Turian girl, but it will be the entire galaxy that brings it to justice for its crimes."

As all of Nazario's immediate family was also killed in the attack, the Star itself will be enshrined in a memorial for those individuals who gave their lives in defense of Oma Ker. Construction of this monument has unfortunately been delayed by activists protesting the inclusion of Human casualties in the lists of honored dead. At this time, it is unknown when construction will resume.


	44. Collapse (Story)

_You know, I haven't been this sure I was about to tick my readers off since I posted "Sleeping Giant". It's a fun feeling. _

_I've been waiting for this one all year, and I certainly hope you all enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it. Angry rants (or excited approval) can be left as reviews or private messages, and as usual I will try to respond to any criticism or comments you may have.. _

* * *

"I'm not sure why you even bother asking. The Vol Protectorate is treaty-bound to defer to the Turian Hierarchy in matters of defense."

"You've read through the battle plan the admirals put together. There is a high degree of risk involved for all participants," Councilor Sparatus explained calmly. "I have spoken with the Primarch. This operation is strictly voluntary. If the Vol Protectorate does not feel confident committing its ships, the Hierarchy will not press the issue."

"No, it's fine," the holographic image of ambassador Din Korlack replied with a dismissive wave of his glowing hand. "Take the Bombing Fleet. Maybe a few thousand dead Volus will finally convince you to give us our own embassy, instead of making us share with the Elcor."

"As we explained at the time, Ambassador, the sudden addition of four new races necessitated several compromises in terms of housing. I assure you, the many contributions your people have made to the galaxy have not been forgotten," Councilor Tevos said soothingly. "Which brings us to another topic we wished to discuss with you. We have received the latest reports from the Ministry of Finance about the state of the galactic economy. The results are…grim."

"Noticed that, did you?" quipped the Ambassador sarcastically. "Three different insurance companies have already declared bankruptcy thanks to everything they lost on Thessia. Stocks for most major Asari corporations are still plummeting. Galactic trade is at its lowest since the Krogan Rebellions, and that's not even calculating the cost of trying to rebuild what that Peacekeeper has destroyed."

"Our analysts agree," stated Councilor Valern, carefully keeping his frustrations at the Volus ambassador's tone off his face. He was used to the Volus ambassador's eccentricities, but the stress and lack of sleep were causing the constant disrespect to grate on even his patience. "Council space is already deep in recession, and if something is not done soon, it will quickly progress into an outright depression."

"So yet again, you'd like my people to sort out your economic mess?" asked Korlack, his electronic voice scathing.

"Frankly, yes." Sparatus' face was a grim as Valern had ever seen it. The stress of the past few months must have been getting to him as well. He was normally much more restrained, especially when admitting that the Council or Hierarchy might need assistance. "The Ministry of Finance has several plans that might halt or at least slow the economic decay, but it will require a great deal of cooperation, on both the governmental and corporate levels."

"The Vol Protectorate has always maintained a hands-off approach to business," the ambassador warned. "If you are asking us to force independently owned corporations to-"

"Nothing so iron handed," Tevos interrupted quickly. "The Asari hold similar beliefs about economic freedom. We would never suggest you violate the rights of your citizens. But you have several personal connections that might prove useful."

"Are you suggesting…"

"No. And neither are you." Valern's voice was crisp and absolute. "However, we would be grateful if you would pass along invitations for the Council's annual Galactic Charity Event to the CEOs of Elkoss Combine and Devlon Industries, with our compliments."

"I see…" mused Korlack thoughtfully. "That's in five days. They may not be able to attend on such short notice."

"Please stress to them how much we are all looking forward to their company at the event," Tevos said with a smile, gently placing emphasis on a few key words.

"Heh," the Volus scoffed, though now his tone seemed more wry than angry. "I'll pass on your message. No promises."

"Naturally," the Asari councilor replied gracefully. "And ambassador? It occurs to me that some additional construction projects on the Presidium might help reduce some of the unemployment in the Wards. New embassy buildings, perhaps, or maybe new memorials to recognize the many contributions various Associate Races have made to the galaxy. Just something to keep in mind."

The Volus ambassador cocked his head in interest, and Tevos smiled thinly. With a nod that looked comical in his oversized suit, the ambassador's hologram vanished and Tevos sagged visibly on her transmitter pad.

"Goddess, this is exhausting," she said casually, walking away from the transmitters to sink into a nearby chair. She began massaging her temples.

"New construction on the Presidium? And where will we get the money for that?" Sparatus asked as he walked to a nearby cabinet. It was a gift from the Liir, telekinetically sculpted from perfect living coral, and would have gone for thousands on the open market. Like everything else in the Council's private office, it was regularly swept for bugs both mechanical and biological. The Turian pulled open the cabinet's doors with a casualness that belayed its expense, pulling out a small, unlabeled bottle. "Would either of you like something?"

"Vitamin water, or maybe a gallon ryncol to put me out of my misery," Tevos replied with a self-deprecating laugh. Sparatus' mandibles widened in amusement as he obediently pulled out a bottle of water and tossed it to her. "My head is killing me, and I can't take any painkillers until after we finish this."

"How long has it been since you slept?" Valern asked, stepping off his own platform. Sparatus looked at him questioningly, gesturing toward the cabinet. "No thank you. I had a nutrient injection several hours ago, I should be fine."

"I had a half-hour nap before we started this. So three hours ago," the Asari answered dismissively as Sparatus sank into his own chair on the other side of the room.

"I meant real sleep. Six hours, minimum," the Salarian corrected. He knew Tevos was just being evasive, but he refused to let the point drop.

"Six full hours?" she asked, raising one eyebrow. "Last month, maybe. You, Sparatus?"

"Not since the Peacekeeper," he agreed. "Too much to do."

"I suspected as much. Both your species have more strict requirements about sleep than mine does. We need to be better about that. It's starting to show, and the Council can't afford to seem weak or overwhelmed right now."

"Heh. Easily said, not easily done. I have a team of six people to budget my time down to the minute," Tevos replied dryly. "And my personal physician refused to prescribe me any more stimulants two weeks ago."

"Then we need to delegate. Hire more assistants. Cut down on public appearances."

"With what money?" Sparatus reminded. "Our only direct revenue comes from taxes on the Citadel and a handful of trade tariffs. That's barely enough to cover C-Sec, much less the different ministries and committees. Those public appearances are directly or indirectly responsible for almost half our income."

"If the three of us take another ten percent pay cut, we'll probably be able to afford the construction I promised Korlack in a year or two," Tevos reasoned, pressing her cool water bottle against her forehead. "But that won't cover any new staff. We can't lower their wages either, not if we want to retain any kind of talent. I've already seen corporate headhunters sniffing around. Besides, most of our existing staff have been pulling extra hours for weeks now. I'm not going to reward that loyalty by cutting their pay."

"And if we put the revenue from a Councilor pay cut toward the new employees, rather than construction?" Sparatus asked. "We never made a hard promise to Korlack, and in this economy it would be believable that we couldn't find the funds."

"He'd never let it go," Valern said instantly. "Korlack's been complaining for years about how the Volus haven't been invited to the Council. He'd see this as just another betrayal. Considering the Morrigi's interest in opening more trade with the Protectorate, that might be enough to drive the Volus right into their hands."

"They're a client species of the Hierarchy! They already have a voice on the Council, and according to the terms of the Protectorate, they have to yield to us in foreign policy anyway!" the Turian councilor said in disbelief. "Being frustrated about not being on the Council makes no sense when you aren't even a fully independent nation to begin with! I'll never understand why someone so unreasonable was appointed ambassador."

"Because he knows the right people," explained Tevos as she took another sip from her water. "Not everyone is like the Hierarchy, Sparatus. In free market systems, it's often more about knowing which palms to grease than it is about any actual skill at diplomacy."

"I know. I still find it…irritating," the Turian said with a shake of his head. "Very well. We can table this for now. We'll run a ten percent Councilor pay cut past the Financial Ministry, try to get an estimate on either the construction or the new staff, and talk about it when we have more data. Back to the issue at hand."

"Very well," said Valern. His memory had always been good, even by Salarian standards, and he quickly began reciting the results of their earlier negotiations. "The Courts of Dekuuna have agreed to take over the ongoing orbital relief efforts for Thessia. This being the Elcor, we can expect a relatively slow response time, but it should free up the Turian fleet elements we currently have stationed there."

"Not that this will be in time to help against the Enforcer," Sparatus muttered darkly. "Still, anything is better than nothing."

"The Hanar Illuminated Primacy can't send us ships until we do something about the Tarkasian fleets that are moving into their space," the Salarian continued, ignoring the interruption with practiced nonchalance. "The Tarkasian forces moved in once we pulled the two Patrol fleets from the area to fight the Enforcer, and claim to have been sent by the Supreme Commander to 'maintain order during the crisis.'"

"Hopefully Ambassador Kuumak'Orr can make Lan'Kona see reason," commented Tevos. "This isn't the time for petty power grabs."

"On the contrary. From the Tarkasian perspective, this is the perfect time. Their culture revolves around ambition and dominance," explained Valern. "We showed weakness by removing our fleets. The Hanar rely on defense grids for protection instead of ships, which would likely also be seen as weakness. They reacted naturally."

"I doubt their Supreme would like to see my 'natural' reaction to this bullshit," Sparatus snapped angrily. "If they don't recall their fleets-"

"We don't have the ships to fight them right now," Tevos interrupted. "And they likely know it. We'd have to pull something off the Zuul blockade or our Terminus patrols. It would take weeks. Don't mistake their intent. They can't hold those systems, they just want to see what we'll do."

"If they're looking for weakness, we need a strong response," the Turian reasoned. "We have no choice but to deploy a fleet, or their next probe will be even more vicious."

"If we do, they'll know how long it takes us to respond. The weeks it would take to put together a fleet would be a weakness in and of itself," countered Valern. "There are other pressures we could place on them. Embargos, sanctions."

"Neither of those stopped the Liir during the Extermination."

"This is a different situation," Tevos pointed out, placing her empty bottle on the floor beside her. "An economic penalty might also buy us time to put together a relief fleet for the Hanar if we present it as part of an escalating threat."

"Starting with a weaker response runs the risk of making us look indecisive," Sparatus warned.

"Better they think us reluctant to use force than let them know we don't have any force to use," Valern replied calmly. "Are we agreed?"

The others nodded darkly. He could see Sparatus didn't like the idea, but the Turian knew they had no other options. The vast majority of Salarian, Asari, and Turian ships were already deployed, dealing with the Enforcer, the Leviathan, the constant chaos that were the Freeholds and Terminus Systems, and the enormous task of simply keeping the galaxy running.

"Then let's get this over with," the Salarian councilor announced, moving back to his transmitter. His companions quickly followed suit. "Ambassador Kuumak'Orr first?"

"Might as well," Tevos sighed, and Valern could see the pain vanish instantly from her face, replaced by a gentle smile as she fell back into her role as the elegant Asari Councilor. On his other side, Sparatus' mandibles twitched menacingly as the Turian likewise began assuming the role of the Council's 'bad cop'. At a gesture, the projector engaged, showing the glowing form of the burly Tarkasian Ambassador.

"Ah. A call from the Council itself," Kuumak'Orr said, his voice so low it was almost a purr. He smiled broadly, an expression that showed every one of his razor-sharp teeth. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"We would like to discuss the current situation with the Enforcer Vessel," Tevos began calmly. "Have your leaders had a chance to look over our proposal?"

"I relayed it to the Supreme myself," the Tarka said cheerfully, never dropping his smile.

"And?"

"He instructed me to give you this response: 'You have built your empire. Now let us see how you defend it.'" His smile became even wider. "The Supreme has a way with words. I would have phrased it somewhat more bluntly."

"The Council is far from an empire, something your Supreme Commander is well aware of," Valern said with a frown. "The Enforcer is a threat to us all. What will you do if we fail to defeat it?"

The ambassador shrugged. "I'm not sure about the Supreme, but I've got a hundred credits that say it goes after the Crows when it's done with you."

"That's your plan?" Sparatus asked, incredulous. "Hope it attacks your rivals first?"

"Don't be so upset, Spardo." The Tarka paused a moment to savor the minor twitch of annoyance his flippant nickname caused in the Turian. "It just means that the Tarkasian Empire believes you won't need our help to win. Think of it as a vote of confidence!"

"I prefer to think of it as the naked opportunism that it really is."

"Flatter all you want. The Supreme has made his decision. The Tarkasian Empire will not help you."

"Very well," said Tevos with a disappointed frown. "In that case, there is another issue we wish to discuss with you."

"And what might that be?" asked Kuumak'Orr coyly, his broad smile again putting the lie to his feigned ignorance.

"Your fleets have annexed three Hanar systems in the past week," Valern stated, careful to keep his tone even. Kuumak'Orr was much more cunning than his manners and age would suggest. The Tarka's casual tone and mockery were all calculated expressions designed to throw others off. It was disturbingly effective. "On behalf of the Hanar Illuminated Primacy, we demand you return these systems and withdraw your forces."

"Annexed? I resent such an accusation," he replied in mock outrage. "Our fleets were dispatched to those systems to assist the Hanar. These are dangerous times, after all. But apparently, the colonies feel much more secure with us than they did with their old government. All three systems seceded from the Primacy of their own volition. We have the records, if you would like to see them."

"We would," commented Sparatus darkly. "And I find it difficult to believe that all three systems would switch allegiance by sheer chance."

"I'm just an old politician," answered Kuumak'Orr with another shrug. "What do I know about how the Hanar think? I think it's odd as well. But who were we to reject fellow sentients coming to us for protection? That wouldn't be neighborly at all, would it?"

"We will look into this matter," Tevos announced. "Please have your proof submitted to the Spectre office by the end of the day, ambassador. They will be handling the rest of the investigation."

"Naturally."

"Be warned," Sparatus said, though his threatening tone gained very little ground against the Tarka's sharp smile. "Should this investigation turn up the slightest evidence of forgery or fraud, the Tarkasian Empire will face severe repercussions."

"I shudder at the thought," Kuumak'Orr replied dryly, just before terminating the call.

"That was…unexpected," commented Tevos thoughtfully. "The defections can't have been legitimate."

"Of course not," Valern said dismissively. "Three planets don't spontaneously switch allegiances without warning. The Enforcer and Leviathan haven't even been active in those areas, so they weren't in any immediate danger."

"The Tarka must know they can't possibly hide the truth for long," she reasoned. "Any kind of serious investigation will reveal the truth. And a coverup like this virtually forces us to make an extreme reprisal when it falls apart. What are they playing at?"

"If I didn't know better, I would say they're trying to provoke a war," Sparatus mused. "But they'd never be able to win. Even with our recent losses, we still outnumber the Tarka three to one."

"There is an ancient Salarian saying that may be relevant here: 'To defeat a god, you need not kill it. You must only make it bleed,'" Valern recited gravely. "The Tarka do not expect to win in the long term. They only want to prove that we are vulnerable. If they can do that, the Humans, Morrigi, and Hivers will pounce like starving varen."

"Speaking of which…" Tevos said, gesturing toward the transmitter.

"Agreed. One crisis at a time. We can discuss the Tarkasian situation later."

"The Hivers next?" Sparatus suggested. "After that last conversation, I feel the need to talk to someone a little less abrasive."

The other councilors nodded, and the glowing image of Prince Stone Mind swirled into view. Most holographic transmitters had difficulty with the sheer size of Hiver royalty, often capturing only the head and torso, or shrinking the Hiver's image down to something more manageable. This often caused problems, as either much of the Hiver's body language would be lost or both parties would end up talking to the other's feet.

The Council's transmitter, one of the most advanced in the known galaxy, had no such issues. The Hiver ambassador's image was shown in its full glory, towering over twice Valern's height. As he tilted his head back to look Stone Mind in the eye, the Salarian councilor thought he could probably walk right between the Prince's legs and never need to duck. He banished such whimsical thoughts to the back of his mind. The stress was apparently getting to him more than he had originally estimated. He might actually have to budget a full hour for sleeping tonight.

"Councilors," Stone Mind said, bending his front legs into an elegant bow. "It is a pleasure to speak with you, as always."

"The pleasure is ours," Tevos replied, bowing back. Valern and Separatus bowed as well, though Valern noticed that as usual the Turian councilor's bow was much shallower than the others. Stone Mind didn't seem to notice, which was also normal. Traditionally Hiver formal greetings were much more complex, but most species lacked the biology to reciprocate. As such, they were usually truncated to a simple bow or salute when dealing with aliens. Hivers rarely paid much attention to exactly how aliens performed such greetings, so long as they did so when decorum required it.

"As wonderful as it always is to speak with you, I suspect that this is not merely a social call," buzzed Stone Mind knowingly. "Tell me, what can the Hiver Imperium do for you today?"

"Many things, if your Queen is willing," Valern began. "Have your Strategists had a chance to look over the plans we relayed to you?"

"They have, and I am pleased to say that the reception was almost universally positive. Your strategy is sound, and we believe it has a strong possibility of success." Stone Mind's wings fluttered in the Hiver equivalent of a sigh, and his huge shoulders slumped. The drooping gesture had no meaning in Hiver culture, but like many other quirks was something the Prince had adopted to make himself more relatable to races with more traditional body language. "Unfortunately, we will not be able to donate any ships to your defense fleet."

"What?" Sparatus snapped, eyes narrowing. "Why?"

"As you may already be aware, our scientists have finally finished perfecting our first Black Matter reactors," the Hiver replied calmly. Seeing the Council's confusion, he quickly explained. "Among most other races, Black Matter is known as antimatter. The term Black Matter has religious significance for my people, hence why we use it instead of the more universal term favored by other races."

"A logical choice," Tevos agreed. "But why does this discovery prevent you from assisting us?"

"You may recall some months ago we spoke about the Imperium's acquisition of the Omega Station, and you relayed your concerns about how our fleet was larger than we strictly required for defense," explained Stone Mind, his face and body language suddenly unreadable. "I relayed your concerns to the Queen, and it appears that she has taken them to heart. The vast majority of our fleet has been retired, to be replaced or refitted with the new Black Matter reactors. We obviously retain a few active fleets, but considering the recent actions of the Tarkasian Empire, you can understand why Her Majesty is unwilling to risk our last remaining defenders in a battle with the Enforcer."

"Your fleets were quite large before these overhauls began, and we have received no reports of any massive refits," stated Valern, carefully keeping the frustration from his face. The ploy was obvious, as were the hidden barbs in Stone Mind's words. The Hivers were obviously unwilling send them ships. But if they could be forced to admit their excuses were a sham, the Council might get enough political capital to gain leverage in other areas. "You cannot possibly be working on all your ships at once. Surely a floatilla or two could be spared."

"Indeed, I too thought it was odd that so many of our ships would be inaccessible at such an inopportune moment. I asked my Princess to investigate, and she has told me that the shipyards and construction sites are indeed full to their capacity, and even beyond," answered the Prince with a flutter from his wings. "It is not surprising that the exact magnitude of these refits escaped your notice. Rumors are exaggerated and unreliable at the best of times, and it's not as though you could be expected to know our every move."

Valern had to admit the cleverness of citing his mate as the source of this information. If they called his claim into question now, it would be equivalent to accusing her of lying. Many Princes would start a duel on the spot over such an insult. At the least it would give him an excuse to instantly end their negotiations. The final dig at the end was another excellent move, preventing them from presenting any hard proof of his lies without openly admitting to the existence of the STG assets the Prince surely knew were watching his people's shipyards.

"Still, we understand how important it is that the Enforcer be defeated, and we truly do want to help you. Unlike certain others, my people know that the galaxy must stand united against this threat," Stone Mind continued, straightening proudly in another adopted alien gesture. "I spoke with several key Strategists, and together we have come up with a way to get you the support you require. Shining Crystal has relayed our plan to the Queen, and Mother-Of-All has approved it. All we require is your permission, and we can begin immediately. If we act swiftly, we may even be able to obtain two full fleets to assist you."

"Your mate is truly a remarkable woman to go so far on our behalf," Tevos began, her tone guarded. "But I have to wonder exactly what this plan of yours would entail."

"As I am sure you know, at this time we have eight Nesting Fleets currently traveling to new systems. Due to the precious nature of their cargo, they are heavily protected, something the Enforcer unfortunately seems to have taken notice of. If you would permit it, we could deal with several independent contractors and send empty freighters to rendezvous with these fleets. These freighters could quickly ferry them to their destinations, and once their Gates were deployed their guards would be free to assist you against the Enforcer. Our Princesses and their children are protected and sped to their new homes, while you get the support you need against our mutual foe. Everyone wins."

"An operation of this size could not be hidden," said Sparatus, his mandibles stretching into a Turian frown. "It would effectively legalize utilizing alien ships to transport your craft."

"That was never explicitly illegal in the first place," Stone Mind dismissed airily. "Besides, is now not the perfect time to put aside our racial paranoia for the greater good? I beg you Councilors, for the good of this entire galaxy, let the past be past. We can help you. We want to help you. We just need this small bit of trust."

"We appreciate your offer, Ambassador, as well as the spirit it was offered in," answered Tevos, letting the double meaning of her words hang unspoken in the air. "We will consider it."

"Then I thank you for your consideration. But I must stress that time is key. The Enforcer will not wait for us, and every minute we delay is a ship that cannot be recovered in time to help in the fight."

"We are aware," Valern said with finality. "Expect our response shortly. Good day, Ambassador."

"To you as well." The Prince bowed again, and his image dispersed. Tevos slumped, rubbing at her temples.

"This was premediated," Sparatus said instantly. "The coincidences are too great. The only way for them to possibly send ships is to legalize towing? They'll have twenty planets colonized inside of a month. And that nonsense about 'independent contractors.' The Hivers obviously mean to ally with the Migrant Fleet. They've probably been planning something like this ever since Omega."

"It would explain why Stone Mind invented a reason to add that Quarian girl to his staff. She's the daughter of Admiral Zorah, so she'd be a perfect unofficial go-between for both nations," Tevos added, her eyes still closed. "The Quarians have enough large ships to easily act as carriers for Hiver Gateships, and payment in resources or repairs would be simple for the Hivers to manage."

"In the long run, a Quarian/Hiver alliance could be as devastating as the Krogan were," reasoned Valern. "They don't have such a phenomenal birth rate, but Hivers view having children as a sacred right. Culturally, they will never be happy with any technology or strategy that would limit their population. It may not be a problem now, but with reliable faster-than-light travel, the power of the Quarian fleet, and a few centuries to increase their numbers they would be more dangerous than the other three Orion races put together. They will either be forced to open new Relays, letting who knows what new horror through, or begin a genocidal campaign to acquire more viable worlds to inhabit."

"Then our answer has to be no," Sparatus stated. "As much as it would please me to see the Migrant Fleet finally find a home, we cannot jeopardize the future of the galaxy for a temporary benefit."

"Could we allow them to recover their ships though some sort of emergency motion? It could grant them temporary permission to tow their ships but would eliminate any long-term threat," suggested Tevos. "The Hivers will get their colonies several years early, and we would still have their support against the Enforcer."

"Such a motion would require us to openly admit that we are preventing the Hivers from towing their ships. The other Orion races may not like Hiver colonization any more than we do, but pro-secession sentiment is growing, especially now that they've mostly finished integrating our various technologies. Those elements would seize on this as another example of the Council holding back Orion advancement. If they get enough support, the entire Orion Arm could break off and become an independent state. I shudder to think what would happen next. It would make our relationship with the Terminus look positively friendly."

"Very well. No compromise then." Valern straightened and turned back to the transmitter. "We'll give Stone Mind our answer tomorrow. Ambassador Udina next?"

"Oh Goddess. There isn't enough pain medication on the entire Citadel that could make me want to deal with him," Tevos moaned, but she straightened and opened her eyes, the pain and stress vanishing behind her mask again. "Alright, let's get it over with."

It took longer for the Human's image to appear. The three of them waited in stern silence as seconds ticked past and the 'calling' icon continued to flash on the side of the transmitter. Keeping them waiting like this was a cheap tactic, Valern thought as they continued to wait. They had deliberately chosen to do these negotiations at a time when all the ambassadors would be in their offices, and he knew for a fact that Udina had his own transmitter located five feet from his desk. It was a deliberate, if somewhat childish, ploy to display superiority.

"Councilors," stated the Human ambassador darkly as his image finally appeared. His grizzled face was fixed in its permanent scowl, and the man's dress uniform was as immaculate as ever.

Valern noticed the way Udina's hand casually rested on the hilt of his dress sword and suppressed a scornful frown. It was an aggressive stance, a constant reminder of force, and as usual was probably not half as subtle or effective as the Human seemed to think it was. Stone Mind was more intimidating asleep than the Human ambassador was when he was furious. The Salarian took note of the emotional and irrelevant tangent his thoughts had drifted toward and reflexively centered himself again. Perhaps he should increase his sleep to an hour and fifteen minutes tonight.

"Ambassador," Sparatus stated in an equally cool tone. "Have you had a chance to look over the plans we sent you?"

"I have, and they are completely outrageous!" Undina spat, and Valern saw his Asari compatriot suppress what was either a wince or a sigh. "You dare demand we send our ships to defend your planets?"

"It is a request, not a demand. The Council does not have the power to force an associate member to deploy any military assets, nor would we use that power if we had it," the Salarian corrected calmly. "And I would remind you that when the position was reversed, our people gladly give their lives for yours, as recent events have so poignantly shown."

"Cut the bullshit," Udina growled. "We all know the whole business around Oma Ker was a public relations stunt. SolForce is not responsible for the fact that your commander was too stupid to know when he was beaten, and one dead Turian girl does not give you the right to demand that we sacrifice our ships as cannon-fodder in an alien fleet!"

"I assure you, any assets you provide would be extended the same respect as our own forces," Tevos said, but there was a definite edge to her normally soothing tone.

"Oh? Because I think we all know how much respect Turians extend to their forces," the Human scoffed. "If they can't be trusted not to fire own their own kind, how can we trust them not to sacrifice us the moment it seems convenient?"

"That accusation is ridiculous," Sparatus stated, his tone becoming hard. "The only casualties from friendly fire at Oma Ker were Turian. Our 'stupid' commander made certain that no alien ships, especially human ones, were hit by stray shots."

"And you base these claims on what? The second hand reports of Turian sailors, collected by Turian officials? Even if I did accept such obviously biased testimony as hard evidence, the fact remains that any one of those statements and reports could easily have been edited by your STG to say whatever you'd like them to."

Udina did have a small point, Valern admitted. They really had edited the testimony of survivors and the Black Box data from the dead ships before releasing them to the public. But they had mostly gone through to remove any classified information, as well as to edit out several choice comments made by ranking officials after Task Force 21's abrupt retreat from the battle. The careers of a few promising officers, as well as the reputations of several fallen heroes, would have been forever tarnished if not for a few strategic deletions and 'equipment malfunctions'.

"We're getting off topic," he said finally, retaking control of the conversation. Noticing Tevos' stony expression, he decided to go out on a limb. "You find our plan unacceptable? Very well. What would have to be changed for you to agree to assist us?"

The ambassador paused for a moment, obviously somewhat surprised at Valern's abrupt willingness to compromise. He normally would have been much more firm, as it was the Asari's usual role to suggest concessions. But Udina's insults seemed to be getting to her, and with the Tarka and Hivers refusing to help things were getting more desperate. Without support from the Orion races, additional ships would have to be pulled into the defense and forced into a close support role they were not designed for. If even one Orion race agreed to help, hundreds of lives might be saved. Their pride wasn't worth that.

"First, I refuse to allow Human ships to be ordered around by an alien commander. SolForce maintains a standing policy about this, and we will not make exceptions. Therefore, I demand a Human Admiral be appointed as supreme commander of the defense fleets," Udina began, quickly recovering from his surprise and easily smoothing over the pause that had resulted. "Second, I believe our assistance in this matter should more than prove our willingness to participate in galactic defense. As such, Humanity will be granted a seat on the Council, effective immediately. And third, as a Council race, we demand to be allowed the same amount of dreadnoughts as the Turian Hierarchy. It is outrageous that the Turians be allowed to such a massive military advantage over other races, and we refuse to stand for it!"

Out of the corner of his eye, Valern caught Sparatus covering up a scornful laugh with a silent cough. He frowned. Udina's demands were completely ridiculous, obviously, but they were designed to be. It was how the man operated. After these demands were rejected, he would 'converse' with his superiors, and come back in a few hours with new terms. They would still be extremely generous toward the Human side of the deal, but would seem more reasonable in comparison to his earlier demands. Behind his shouts and empty threats, Udina had a keen mind. But Valern was in no mood to play along with the Human's games.

"We reject all of your terms," he pronounced instantly. "The majority of the defense force will still be Council ships, and no Human commander has the experience necessary to effectively coordinate ships of that design in combat. Nor has your race exhibited anything that suggests your commanders would welcome input from alien advisors."

Udina began to draw himself up to start another tirade, but Sparatus cut him off.

"The idea that you could blackmail your way onto this Council is not only ridiculous but insulting. Council races are selected for proving not only that they have the power to affect galactic policy but also that they are willing to put the needs of the galaxy over the interests of their own species," the Turian snapped, his dark eyes flashing. "You and your people have demonstrated over the past few decades that not only are you uninterested in putting the greater good above your own advancement, but that you would consider doing so to be a sign of extreme weakness. I doubt Humanity will join this Council in your lifetime, Ambassador, and if your race's attitude of blatant xenophobia does not change I suspect you never will!"

"That's outrageous! All this Council has done since its creation is advance its own interests over those of 'lesser' species!"

"Ambassador, our time is quite valuable," Tevos replied calmly, refusing to be provoked any further. "If ridiculous demands and baseless accusations are all you have to say, then I am afraid this conversation is at an end. Good day."

The Human Ambassador's image vanished just as he opened his mouth, and Tevos smirked in satisfaction.

"That felt a lot better than I like to admit," she said sheepishly, before glancing at the other councilors and sighing heavily. "What do you think their real demands will be?"

"Probably something with long-term strategic value," Valern suggested logically. "Likely they'll want to be allowed another dreadnought, and they'll 'offer' to take over Turian patrol routes in Inner Council Space."

"Which would coincidentally let them put several large fleets within a few days of almost every major Council planet and station," Sparatus scoffed. "Not happening."

"Then I suppose our only remaining option is the Citadel Eldest," Tevos said in resignation. "I had hoped we could avoid that."

"The Liir have certainly proven themselves to be less than reliable in the past," Valern admitted diplomatically. He disliked the Liir, mostly because much of what they did little sense. They preached peace while building warships. They spoke in favor of tolerance and forgiveness, but were single-handedly responsible for murdering an entire species for relatively minor offenses. They had no sense of privacy, but clung to their own secrets like they were precious gems. The Liir were more full of contradictions than Humans were.

"Agreed. Still, I've seen the estimates for their new battlecruisers. If they perform half as well as the STG thinks they might, they're exactly what we'll need to take down the Enforcer for good," pointed out Sparatus. "And they are the most communal of the Orion races. Even if they only give us a pair of battlerider carriers, the support might be invaluable."

"Then all our hopes lay on the Liir being willing to help," said Tevos with weary finality. "That phrase would have sounded much more optimistic a decade ago. Alright. Let's call them."

Unlike with Stone Mind, there was no way to show the entirety of the Voice of the Citadel in such a small room. The creature was well over twenty meters long, so the transmitter only displayed the Liir Elder's front half. Even then the image had to be shrunk significantly before it could reasonably fit. A second image also swirled into view, the glowing shape of a Prester Zuul in ornate robes.

"Greetings, Eldest," Tevos began politely. Valern suddenly felt a surge of prickling along his skull and down his spine, indicating the Citadel Eldest had begun focusing its attention on them. He still wasn't used to that. "Who is your guest?"

When the Liir had first come to the Citadel, no one had any idea of how psionics worked, much less of how to combat them. The amount of confidential information that had been compromised in the first hours alone was impossible to know, but fortunately the Liir had yet to act on any of the dark secrets they had likely learned.

It had taken decades for the Council's various psion programs to advance to the point that blocking even a casual probe from the Voice of the Citadel had been possible, but the dramatic arrival of the Prester Zuul had finally provided the push they needed. A dedicated team of asari now followed the councilors wherever they went, screening them from mental tampering. But the shields weren't perfect, so Valern had to put up with prickling every time a powerful psychic so much as looked at him.

"This is Aril Levi, of the Manas Tradition," the Liir Elder explained, its musical voice echoing mournfully. "He is here as an advisor, and to represent the Prester Zuul in all negotiations."

"I am honored to know you, Councilors," the Zuul said with a respectful bow.

"And you, Aril," Valern replied, using the Zuul's religious title. Though Aril was not a very high rank among the Hanar, the Zuul had not been in contact with them for long. To have been given it so quickly, Levi was likely quite gifted. "Have you had a chance-"

"No."

"No?" asked Tevos, confused by the Citadel Eldest's abrupt response.

"I know the question you wish to ask. The answer is no. Neither the Liir or the Prester Zuul can help you."

"Might I ask why?" Sparatus said, his tone scathing.

"You may, but we will not answer."

"We understand how frustrating this likely is for you, and please know that our refusal is not an indicator of any ill-will," Levi cut in diplomatically. "We strongly hope that you will prevail, and would be happy to assist in other ways. But we cannot supply any war vessels to you at this time."

"I assume you are aware by now that the others have also refused our requests?" Valern asked neutrally.

"Yes," replied the Liir Elder. "Their short-sightedness is regrettable, and we had hoped they would aid you where we could not. But that does not change the Liir's decision."

"And the Prester Zuul?" Tevos probed, focusing on Levi. "Do you support the Liir in this?"

"Yes, we do. The circumstances are unfortunate, and we regret that we cannot fully explain ourselves to you all. Please believe that if we could help you, we would."

"We are sorry, Councilors. In time, all will be made clear," said the Voice of the Citadel, its normally mournful voice now even more sorrowful. "But for now, this is a threat you must face alone. Be strong. This is but the first cold current. The true ice of winter has yet to come."

"Cryptic and threatening. A wonderful combination," muttered Sparatus as the pair of holograms dispersed before them. "At least we can probably use this to wrestle some economic aid out of them. That might help keep us out of total depression."

"True, but it doesn't solve our more pressing problem," Valern pointed out. "Only a few Turian ships are designed for close engagements. Our ships could do it, but since our cloaks don't work the Enforcer would shred them like paper. And it would disintegrate any Asari vessel the moment it got within range. If we can't get support from the Orion Arm, we'll have to overwhelm it with sheer numbers. Casualties would spike by twenty five or even fifty percent."

"Well the Liir and Tarkasians rejected us outright, but the Hivers and Humans were at least willing to deal. Hiver ships would be the best choice, since they have numbers and durability. There has to be something we can offer them to get them to cooperate."

"Technology? Their energy weapon and field technologies aren't very advanced. We don't have to give them anything state of the art. Positron beams or low level energy shields, something like that."

"Maybe. I suspect Stone Mind will try to hold out for something more impressive though. And what do we do about SolForce? Their ships aren't as durable, but their beam weapons would be ideal for stripping the turrets off the Enforcer's dorsal section. A few Blazer ships would be perfect, but I'm sure Udina knows that as well. He'll make us bleed for them."

"We might be able to bargain him down. Patrols along major trade routes further from critical areas, maybe. Pull their fleets back into the hunt for _Leviathan_. Another dreadnought is out of the question, the other Orion races would revolt, but maybe we could offer to help finish their next Leviathan as a joint project, to show species unity."

"I doubt the Humans would ever let aliens help build one of their advanced warships, but the idea has merit," Sparatus agreed. "A financial contribution and some lip service, rather than actual involvement, might-"

"No," Tevos said softly, the first she'd spoken since their conversation with the Liir delegation. The two others turned to face her, and saw that her face was a mix of anguish and pure rage. "We're done with this."

"Done with what?" Sparatus asked gently. Valern could see why the Turian was treading carefully. He hadn't seen his Asari friend like this since Thessia was attacked.

"This. I'm sick of letting people laugh in our faces or flatter us with pretty words while stabbing us in the back." Her eyes were hard now, and her skin had started to glow with the faint aura of her biotics. "Udina thinks he can make outrageous demands and then accuses us of racism when we refuse. Kuumak'Orr thinks the idea of Council military intervention is a joke. Stone Mind lies to our faces while trying to extort us. The Liir harbored dangerous aliens, exterminated a species without warning, and now they're make shadowy threats and hiding even more from us. No more."

"I understand your emotions, but I don't think you're being practical," Sparatus argued. "You think I like letting someone like Kuumak'Orr call me 'Spardo?' But this is how the game is played."

"If this is a game, then we are losing," she snapped harshly. "Is this what we've come to? Letting them blackmail, threaten, or extort us because we had the temerity to ask for help? They are holding our soldiers' lives for ransom because they don't think we're ruthless enough to spend them!"

"Yes, they are," agreed Sparatus. "But ruthlessness isn't strength."

"It is to them," countered Tevos. "Have you seen some of the things the Humans are saying about us? The Hivers have been trying to negate the Citadel Truce since before it was even signed, the Liir treated our war crimes trials for the Batarian Extermination like a joke, and the Tarkasians think we're so toothless they're actively threatening war when we outnumber them three to one!"

"How are we supposed to respond? We can hardly go to war because one of their ambassadors threw a tantrum."

"Sparatus, I became a Councilor for one reason. I wanted to build a better galaxy for my daughter to live in. And I failed." The flare of biotics was gone, replaced by a weary pose that seemed to go all the way to her bones. "My daughter is dead. She shares a mass grave with the nine hundred and fifty six million other daughters, sisters, and mothers who were pulverized beyond recognition, vaporized, or buried so deep we will never be able to excavate them."

"Their deaths, and the deaths of the six hundred and forty four million Asari whose bodies were fortunate enough to be identifiable, are on our hands. We swore to uphold peace in the galaxy, to protect our people and allies from anything that might threaten them. We failed," she repeated, her expression dark. "And it's not just our people who are suffering. We let twelve times that many Batarians die while their ambassadors begged and pleaded with us for help. Their blood is also on our hands."

"We can rationalize it however we like. The Batarians had left the Council. They weren't our concern. They didn't deserve our help after they had spent years attacking our planets and enslaving our people. Excuses, every one of them. The fact is we could have stopped the Liir, and we didn't. We could have put pressure on SolForce when they began constructing the Leviathan. When they lost it through sheer incompetence, we could have helped them find it, but we didn't. Again, we made excuses. It wasn't our problem. It wasn't a threat. Thessia is as much a casualty of our arrogance as it is of Human warmongering."

"We've done nothing these past decades but make excuses. 'All races have trouble integrating at first.' 'Their cultures and histories are built on conflict, so some xenophobia is natural.' 'Intervening would cause more problems than it solves,'" she recited mockingly. "Every time some new catastrophe comes out of the Orion Arm, we rationalize it. 'This will be the last one. Now they can live with us in peace.' The technological arms race. The Morrigi Confederation. The Batarian Extermination. The _Leviathan_. The Prester Zuul. The Enforcer. Each time, we lose ground. We slap wrists, we make concessions, all in the hopes that this latest gift will be the one to buy lasting peace."

"The Orion races will never live with us in peace, because they don't want to. They don't want to shepherd the galaxy; they want to rule it. They see the fragile equilibrium we've spent centuries to build and all they want to do is smash it with a hammer so they can pick through the pieces. We showed them a galaxy filled with species working together for the common good. Did they admire us for rising above the violent conflicts that had so divided them? No. They thought we were weak for ever allowing ourselves to become so dependent on 'aliens.'"

"From the moment they met us, they thought we were weak. And we let them. We tolerated their jabs and taunts, pretended we didn't see their power plays and political faux pas. But with every kindness we extended, they saw more weakness," spat Tevos in disgust. "We shared our knowledge of the Mass Effect, and they scoffed that we would give up our secrets so easily. We gave them territory, worlds that could have been ours, but they greedily grabbed even more while accusing us of hoarding the best planets for ourselves. We welcomed them with open arms, invited them to trade and even live on our worlds. They accused us of trying to corrupt their citizens, as though our cultures were some kind of infectious disease they were worried about catching!"

"I can see where this road leads. It doesn't matter if we give the Hivers particle beams, or let the Humans look for their rogue ship. They won't stop. Every carefully orchestrated crisis, every time we need their cooperation, their demands will be the same. And sooner or later, we'll give in. To save lives, to keep the peace, it doesn't matter why, but we will. They'll get what they want," she stated heavily. "Do you think they'll stop there? If we let the Hivers tow their ships, next they'll demand to be allowed to directly use Mass Effect cores for faster-than-light travel. If we give the Orion races Council seats, they'll just demand more dreadnoughts. If we give them dreadnoughts, they'll want more economic influence. It will never end, so long as they think that they can bully us into giving them what they want."

"So no. I don't think we should try to bargain the Humans down, or strike a new deal with the Hivers. We draw the line here. No more empty threats. No more compromises. No more forgiveness. The Hivers need to learn that they cannot lie and twist their way into power. We have to show the Humans exactly how little their threats and blustering means to us. The Liir must be taught that their lethal secrets will no longer be tolerated. And the Tarkasian Empire has to know that the next time they try to test our military strength, they will be made to regret it."

"An…overly emotional analysis, but an accurate one," remarked Valern. "Peace can only be achieved if all parties respect one another. We have done little lately to earn the Orion Arm's respect."

"Yeah, I kind of got carried away there. Sorry," she said, slumping into a nearby chair. "It's the stress. Physical and emotional. I'm just so tired."

"As are we all," Sparatus agreed. "You were right though. Concessions would be the wrong choice here. Even if it costs lives in the short term, giving in will cost even more in the long term. It's time for some decisive action."

"Then we're all agreed?" asked Valern, his keen mind already spinning away, plotting the required fleet deployments, the favors he'd need to call in.

"Yes. No more compromises. We will stand alone."


	45. Volus Council Membership (Codex)

_Time for a Guest Codex...sort of. This chapter was cowritten by ShadowCub, one of my more vocal reviewers. As chat logs are kinda boring, I thought having someone else write one of the view points might help keep things interesting. The Council's treatment of the Volus (both currently and historically) was brought up a few times in the last chapter's reviews, so we thought it might be fun to explore that a bit more._

_I've also noticed some comments about how Humanity is shaping up, as well as how the Council is being written, so I figured I would clear the air a bit. Udina was an ass in canon, and he's one here too. People like Director Hannibal, Admiral Hackett, and Ambassador Goyle are much more honest representations of Humanity than he is. But I should be clear: while most Humans are not racist assholes, SolForce is definitely not morally superior to the Council. _

_Humanity isn't mad that the Council abandoned the Quarians, infected the Krogan with the genophage, or that it tolerates pirates/slavers on the Terminus. It's mad that they didn't do ENOUGH of that kind of thing. If SolForce had been running things, the Quarians would have been forced to become a Client race and their fleets would be seized for Human purposes. The Krogan would have been eradicated, not just sterilized. And they currently sponsor slavers and pirates groups (see the Blue Suns Codex entry) to attack not only other nations, but also occasionally their own colonies. Just to remind more independent-minded worlds why they really NEED SolForce. _

_The Council has lots of problems, and Humanity isn't nearly as bad as people like Udina would make you think. We'll be looking in on some more sympathetic portrayals of Humans in the future. But if you were hoping for a big scene where the Orion Races call the Council on their bullshit, you're probably going to be disappointed. _

_That morbid topic out of the way, let me know what you think of the discussion! The next chapter will likely be a big one, so you may have to wait a bit. But hopefully, it'll be worth it. _

* * *

**Volus Council Membership: Citadel News Extranet Forum Topic - Page 3 OF 3**

**JiniriMatron: **That's ridiculous. The Volus are a client species, something they lobbied hard for. How can you justify letting a client race onto the Council? They don't even set their own foreign policy!

**IruneDreamer:** The fact that the Volus might be a client race, but we were the third race behind the Asari and Salarians to have a embassy on the citadel ahead of the Turians, we developed a stable galactic banking system for the Council races, which gives everyone a sense of central government.

We have been patiently waiting all of these years for a seat on the citadel as recognition of our contributions to the Council, and it seems that we will continue to wait as you allow four new comers to slide in front of us once again.

And yet you have the nerve to ask us for assistance in a mess of your own making? We are a client race...but it seems that we are receiving very little value for our services, this seems to be a one way relationship, where the council and our protectors the Turians do not appreciate the Volus Protectorate.

The offer of construction on the Presidum is nothing more than empty gestures from a empty purse, I and my clan tire of being the last invited and the first to be asked for a gift.

**JiniriMatron: **No one is saying that the Volus haven't made a great contribution to the galaxy, or that the other Associate races aren't equally important. But you're completely ignoring the key issues!

First, a Council race must be willing and able to contribute to galactic defense. As you said, the Volus have been active almost from the Council's inception, yet your people have nothing but a fleet of bombing frigates to protect yourselves. The only 'Volus' dreadnought in existence is privately owned by a corporation, and isn't even finished. The Volus also don't have enough colonies to provide the resources or economic support a Council race is expected to supply in times of crisis. But that's not even the biggest problem with your so-called logic!

The Volus Protectorate is a PROTECTORATE. By the terms of the treaty YOUR PEOPLE negotiated, the Volus Protectorate MUST defer to the Turian Hierarchy in all foreign and military matters. The only thing the Council deals with are foreign affairs and military problems. If the Volus were inducted into the Council, you would be forced by your own treaty to always vote with whoever was the Turian Councilor at the time. The Volus wouldn't get more say in galactic policy, the Turians would.

And accusing the Council's proposed construction project of being an empty gift? That's bullshit! First, they're funding it with money taken from their own pay. They're giving their OWN MONEY to make sure YOU are recognized. And second, if they were planning to renege on their promise of construction, they wouldn't have announced it publicly! Even the dumbest politician in the world knows better to publicly promise something they have no intention to deliver on!

If the Council's purse is empty, it's because they're too busy complying with VOLUS demands to lower tariffs on interstellar trade! I'm tired of Volus politicians scoffing about how bad they're being oppressed when most of them make more annually than all three Councilors combined! The Council is working for the greater good of the galaxy. The only thing your people seem interested in is their credit accounts.

**IruneDreamer:** Yes it is a empty gift...what the people need are stable job and credits in their accounts.

Of what use are memorials, its an empty gift because once those small construction jobs are done, people will still be out of work and you will look to us to produce a economic miracle.

The Volus are a indeed a Protectorate...we thought that eventually our worth would be proved to the galactic community and we would receive what was our due, we were here before the Turians, you Asari only found this station you did not build it. We supported the idea of a galactic government. And we have been patient, we have received nothing but a lack of respect and constant demands from you three for help when you cannot manage your own budgets.

We tire of being the last to be thought of and the first you call when you need a favor. We wonder if we would do better if we rescind your protection for what it is worth. We may not have the ships or resources, but I am sure that if we had to we could hire our own mercenary fleet, which would let certain individuals who are nothing more than a drain on our resources.

**JiniriMatron:** First you say the construction is an empty gift because it does not show the respect the Volus deserve. Now it is an empty gift because it doesn't do enough to help the galactic economy. Which is it? If the Council were to cancel this construction and add additional diplomatic or C-Sec personnel instead, would that satisfy you? It's what you want: long term jobs that can provide individuals with income indefinitely. But there are only so many resources to use. If the Volus must have a monument to their vanity, then you cannot grumble that the Council did not use that money to stimulate the economy in the long term.

The Council is not expecting a miracle, nor are they begging for money as you seem to be implying. The Council is requesting that the Vol Protectorate provide economic support to Volus corporations like the Elkoss Combine to keep them from having to liquidate staff or cut wages.

These economic troubles are not a result of 'mismanagement' on behalf of Council races. They are due to conflict with outside forces. Thessia was home to some of the biggest corporations in Council space, including the Armali Council and Serrice Technology. What do you think having their headquarters vaporized did to their stock prices? Shipyards like Oma Ker employed tens of thousands of workers, and many merchants are too afraid of the Enforcer to even leave dock.

The Book of Plenix, one of your own religious texts, clearly states that in times of war, every Vol-Clan must provide aid to those in need. Is the galaxy not in need? An economic collapse would punish your people as much as it would mine. You are not saving the Council. You are saving yourselves. The rest is just a side effect. But you seem too interested in 'punishing' us for imaginary slights to even bother thinking of anything but your pride.

And 'constant demands'? As usual, you exaggerate in an attempt to make us the villains in your imaginary narrative. The Salarian, Turian, and Asari economies all dwarf the Protectorate's by several orders of magnitude. This is the first time the Council has requested the Vol Protectorate change its economic policies in over four hundred years.

Hire mercenaries to protect you? How novel. And how many dreadnoughts will the Blood Pack bring to defend your homeworld? Will the Blue Suns, who barely even tolerate non-humans in their own ranks, fight to the death in your defense? Will the Silver Spears fight against their own kind if the Tarkasian Empire sets its sights on your colonies? Even if you could find a mercenary force that is large enough to provide even a fraction of the security that the Hierarchy provides, what then? Who will guard your guardians? Mercenaries are not known for their ethical standards. Corruption and infighting are rife among them. Your shipments will be confiscated, your merchants extorted, and if a true threat comes to your door, they will suddenly regret to inform you that their rates have just tripled.

Beyond your hilariously flawed logic, I also note that you have not addressed ANY of the issues I listed that prevent the Volus from joining the Council. Ignoring my arguments does not make them weaker. It only shows that you have no good response.

**IruneDreamer: **No the council wants to use the Volus for our connections, we get some public works thrown our way that only make good press for your Council. You need our assistance because of your insistence on having such massive fleets, now in your hour of need you do not have the ships you need to protect your territory, how is that plan working for you?

We will do as the Council asks because for now what impacts you sadly impacts us all. But when this is over and if you are successful the Volus Protectorate should be given several concessions, for our efforts on your behalf.

**JiniriMatron:** Oh shove it. Those fleets the Council doesn't have? They're already deployed to protect YOUR ungrateful asses! There are THREE Turian fleets in orbit over the Volus homeworld right now! If the Council just moved those, they wouldn't need to ask anyone for help. But they won't, and you know why? Because unlike the Orion races, the Council actually honors its commitments and cares about what happens to its allies.

You can shove those condescending demands you think your people should be making too. You want a medal for saving your own metal ass-plates? Give me a break.

I also note that AGAIN you have refused to address even a single argument that I presented. Denial won't change reality. If you want to actually do some research, feel free to come back and we can discuss this like grownups. Until then, go back to stroking your ego in whatever imaginary galaxy you've weaved for yourself, and stop wasting the time of people who want to discuss politics in the REAL world.

**IruneDreamer:** I don't have to address an argument with you, the fact is that we have been part of a political entity that does nothing but take and take and take...for example we found a system that is perfect for our needs, a planet that has no value for anyone but our species and two moons.

The council spies the Salarians discovered that the moons had large deposits of eezo in them. suddenly the Turians decided that they needed that system more than we did, they cannot even use the planet, didn't know it was there but as soon as they found something they wanted they took it.

No explanations just that those resources needed to be redistributed to those who needed them more...did they give it to a newer race, an associate race, no the Turians took it with the Asari getting their share. Being "protected" by the Turians doesn't mean much.

We get no respect but the entire galaxy uses our services everyday, if you think we are supposed to be content with waiting on the sidelines for another thousand years you are sadly mistaken. I for one see little benefit to continuing our relationship with the Turians.

**JiniriMatron: **First off, yes you do. I have addressed every single one of your so-called issues with the Council, and explained why you are either complete wrong, or why the Council has a very good reason for not giving you what you want. If you cannot explain why I am wrong, then the obvious conclusion to draw is that I am NOT wrong. You make wild accusations without any logic or proof, and then when I point out the MANY flaws in your arguments, you claim you 'don't have to address them'. I hate to break it to you, but just because you say something doesn't make it true.

And if you're referring to the whole Ruk'Karak debate, you've left out a few key points. First, you have to take into account the differences between Turian and Volus culture. Turians are big believers in all individuals acting for the greater good. From their perspective, the Volus should have just given them the Element Zero to begin with. Admittedly that's not a sentiment that agrees with our morals, but can you honestly say you WOULDN'T want to see more galactic cooperation? The Hierarchy needed the eezo on Ruk'Karak for the ongoing refit of the Turian Fleet. The Volus had no pressing need for the stockpile, so the eezo would likely have fallen into corporate hands and been sold to the highest bidder in the Terminus had the Hierarchy not intervened. Hmm, more pirate hunters or more pirates? I know who I'd rather have get that eezo.

Second, the Turians seized the planet by accident. The Primarch wanted to enter negotiations with the Volus to purchase the mineral rights of the planet from them, something they've done in the past. The Turian commander at the time was not aware that negotiations had not yet fully begun, and assumed that the Hierarchy had already been given control of the planet. When the Volus presented the situation to the Council, it sided WITH the Vol Protectorate, forcing the Hierarchy to formally purchase the mining rights from them before they began any mining. According to the most recent press release, the Volus may begin colonization as soon as the Turians have finished completing the infrastructure they'll need for their mining. The Turian Councilor and the Primarch have both apologized for what happened, and I should point out that the ASARI Councilor was the one who led the effort to make sure your people were adequately compensated.

Oh, and about how we 'got our cut?' Yeah, we bought that eezo from the Turian Hierarchy through one hundred percent legal channels. But feel free to ignore my arguments, since that seems to be your default reaction to anything that goes counter to your warped view of the galaxy.

**IruneDreamer:** Yeah we Volus know what the common good is for the Turians; their good. The Turians seized the planet by accident, are you even listening to yourself? We found it, the council certified our claims, and it was a entire year of it in our possession while we surveyed and made plans for settlement. The Turian ambassador even told us they couldn't spare patrols out that far from the relays, but we find a valuable element and all of a sudden they have ships on site?

Anyone can make the fact fit when they run the council offices of presenting those facts to the public, I know of it because I was a member of the crew tasked with surveying the planet, we surveyed the moon as well and two weeks later the planet was taken from us.

The Hierarchy doesn't even have ships that far out, in order to take the eezo, they have to use our transports and they wont even pay a fair price on the transport, saying something about their protection. What protection? Our ships are still raided by pirates yearly.

It was a poor day when we gave up our sovereignty to those hard shell bastards, they think that they are more powerful than any other race, this dispute they are in, I hope they get tore a cloche.

Buying stolen goods is criminal, the Turians stole it from us. And attempted useless platitudes when we protested to the council, only to find out that they colluded with each other to keep the eezo between the three of them under the auspices of redistribution of needed substances for the good of everyone. Everyone but us it seems.

**JiniriMatron: **Of course the Council certified your claim, and of course the Turians did not intervene until after you found eezo. Did you even read what I posted? They were there SPECIFICALLY there for the element zero, which they believed had already been negotiated for. They would hardly show up to claim something they didn't even know existed. The way you were treated was regrettable, but hardly evidence that the Council is abusing the Volus.

The planet wasn't taken from you. Volus still have full colonization rights, as well as the right to any resources that are not element zero. All the Turians asked was that you hold off from colonizing the planet until after they had completed the basic facilities for their mining operation, so they wouldn't disturb any existing Volus settlements.

And I repeat, that element zero wasn't stolen. It was BOUGHT from the Vol Protectorate. Yes, the Turians should not have taken the planet before negotiations were complete. But claiming the resources were 'stolen' is completely out of line. The Volus people were paid handsomely for the right to any element zero on the planet. Though if you want to talk about illegal purchases, we could talk about how much trade your people have been doing with the Terminus. Minagen may be a relatively harmless substance to your people, but to mine that stuff is extremely dangerous and is illegal on almost all Asari planets.

Oh, and that crack about your ships being raided yearly? Welcome to the galaxy. Everyone's ships get raided. Even SolForce has a problem with pirates, and their transports can't be intercepted without access to Node Space. Volus Corporations like the Elcoss Combine insist on basing their operations in the Terminus to avoid Council litigation, but then throw a fit when their convoys are attacked? No way. You knew the risks when you went out there. The Turians can't patrol that far out without provoking a massive response from the Terminus Systems, and they're hardly going to start an intergalactic war because YOUR corporations care more about the bottom line than they do about their employees' safety.

Also, as a Volus, you don't get to bitch to me about pirates. If they raid your ships, they'll only take your stuff. If an Asari ship gets hit, they take a lot more than just your cargo. Do you know what an Asari slave sells for in the Terminus these days?

**IruneDreamer:** I never said they deserved it but all they want to do is negotiate because creator forbid they actually go out and back up all those fine words they spew, that entire race has no shame. If they used the Turians for more than stealing from their members maybe they would use those ships to go out and clear out those slave dens, but they wont because they don't want to fight.

The council doesn't retaliate against the Terminus Systems because they might lose, and that ban on the ships just means that you come strutting up to us to once again prop up your broken system. Without those ridiculous bans on the size of a races fleets you could get them that way, but no that would threaten your position as the leader of the pack on the council, you people can only rule if everyone else has to toe the line.

You are begging us the Volus for help, how are those fleet size bans working for you?  
Forget the eezo, whatever lies the Hierarchy is telling you, I can tell you we got zero credits for the planet and the eezo. The council does the paperwork but you forget we handle the financial side of thing the only thing we got was another promise of if we find another planet and they don't need the resources we can have that planet.

The entire galaxy knows what the promises of the council are worth, ask the Krogan, ask the Quarians, ask us who loyally serve and get nothing but more demands, sorry friend I trust the Vorcha more than I trust anything coming from the council, at least the Vorcha will just attack and not use honeyed words while picking your pockets.

**JiniriMatron:** You weren't implying we deserve to be sold as sex slaves when you said it was our own fault slavers attack us? Really? Weird. I guess it must have been statements like 'Why should I care what a Asari sells for?', 'all they want to do is negotiate because creator forbid they actually go out and back up all those fine words they spew, that entire race has no shame', and all the other racist crap you've been spewing that threw me off.

...do you even know how the Treaty of Fraxen works? Let me spell it out for you. For every five dreadnoughts the Turian Hierarchy constructs, the Asari Republics and Salarian Union are allowed three, the Orion races are allowed two, and other Associate races like the Vol Protectorate are allowed one.

So first off, the Turians aren't limited in any way. The only thing that happens when they make more dreadnoughts is that other races can also build more. Secondly, neither the Asari nor the Salarians have hit the limits the Treaty would allow. Thirdly, the Treaty doesn't restrict ships like carriers, cruisers, or frigates. You know, the stuff that's actually USEFUL when hunting pirates and slavers. And fourth? The Vol Protectorate doesn't even have any dreadnoughts! You have one fleet, and it's full of bombing frigates.

Oh, I see now! You've opened my eyes! Of course you're right and the Council is refusing to challenge slavers in the Terminus because they're so scared that a ragtag bunch of pirates and petty warlords is going to kick their asses. Concern for civilian casualties and a possible war of extermination has nothing to do with it. Truly, you have opened my eyes!

'We' handle the financial side? No. The Protectorate's own Ministry of Finance handles that, a Ministry that you are not a member of. You yourself said you were part of the team that surveyed Ruk'Karak. I highly doubt an executive accountant with enough clearance to directly view the Protectorate's budget would be sent to the ass end of nowhere so they could analyze rocks. If you're going to lie, at least do it convincingly.

Ask the Krogan? The race that thought dropping asteroids on civilian populations was a great idea? The Krogan are the whole reason we have a ban on using WMDs on garden worlds in the first place! This is a race that would rather invade their neighbors than to figure out the basics of birth control. Do you even remember how many VOLUS worlds the Krogan bombed into obliteration during the Rebellions? And they haven't changed since. It's been over a thousand years since the Rebellions and the number one cause of death for Krogan is still 'gunshot', followed immediately by the number two cause of death: 'cauterized stab wound'. When they grow up, get a unified government, and stop thinking of killing each other as a great way to spend an afternoon, then we can talk about whether or not the Genophage should be cured.

I should also point out that throughout the Rachni Wars and the Krogan Rebellions, whose soldiers selflessly gave their lives to protect Volus colonies? The Council's. But I guess since we're so untrustworthy, that was a mistake. You should have asked the Vorcha to help you. I'm sure they would have come running to protect you, and would have happily brought every ship in that massive fleet of theirs too. Oh wait. They don't have a fleet. Or a government. And they sided with the Krogan during the Rebellions. Whoops.

As for the Quarians, there's a whole separate section to debate that topic. Regardless of whether or not they deserved to be kicked out of the Council for what they did is not relevant to the idea that the Volus are being screwed by the Council.

**IruneDreamer:** Please don't talk as if they did anything but their jobs, their jobs is the military if they didn't think that they might die in service they needed new jobs. The Krogans you used them, you uplifted them and as soon as they got the job done, the council ran back to running the galaxy what do you think that a warrior race with a high birth rate would do?

You gave them no alternative to war, you should have sent teachers, medical personnel, the krogan were in the middle of a Renaissance, and the Council interrupted that and left them with weapons and ships what did they think would happen? Oh right they didn't think and see what happen, the Council is extremely short sighted unless it is a goal that they want completed.

If the council cannot get rid of slavers or pirates, how can they call themselves the legitimate rulers of the galaxy? No the council only cares if something personally threatens their power, THEN it becomes a matter of life and death.

I would agree with you on the cost of life in attacking the Terminus systems, for their slaving and pirating ways, but you aren't safe in Council space! Any colony and some homeworlds the pirates strike with impunity, they don't dare go near any of the Councilors homeworlds but other than that no one is safe.

The Volus Ministry of Finance? Yes they usually handle these matters.  
But you forget all Volus are clan; we actually talk to one another, we do not try to hide the state of our government like the rest of you, when the deal with the planet fell through, it was not a state secret, there was no need to hide what happened as we were not working for a corporation with confidentiality statements. We can discuss what happened because we do not tell outsider the details of what we know. We were told in detail what happened and when it happened.

Explanations had to be made because we actually had detailed plans laid down for; construction, building and engineering crews, colonists families.

All of the information was available to any Volus who wanted to see it, as it affected us all, that is one of the major differences in us, we rarely accept things at face value when dealing with other races.

The Quarians were members who needed help and were thrown out, many wonder if we every became a member and needed help would we get it or be thrown out the door as they were.  
What the council says and what the council does seems to be two differing things.

Me I'm waiting to see if the council can back up their big words with a race that isn't impressed with their own PR.

**JiniriMatron: **We assumed they would do what the Salarians did: realize their birthrates were too high for the colonies they possessed, and take the appropriate steps. Even the Hivers are capable of understanding the need for population control sometimes.

As for your accusations that we left the Krogan in savagery, you could not be more mistaken. The Asari and Salarians welcomed the Krogan with open arms. We sent them teachers, scientists, philosophers. We built them monuments and celebrated them as heroes. They repaid that kindness by taking our worlds by force and physically attacking the Council when it refused to yield even more systems to the growing Krogan Empire. They laughed in the face of our teachers and brushed our intellectual gifts aside as mere signs of weakness.

And as for the Quarians? If you invented a race of slave AIs, gave them guns, war walkers, interceptors, and DREADNOUGHTS, but forgot to include a freaking kill switch? You're damn right I'd want you kicked out of the Council. Autonomous battle weapons have always been a bad idea, and they were told so repeatedly. Even the Orion races knew better.

The Council has never claimed to rule the galaxy. They are an executive committee dedicated to upholding order as well as facilitating trade and negotiations between its member species. Their authority starts and stops at the borders of Council Space. Which is WHY it's called Council Space. The Terminus Systems are explicitly not included, something Volus corporations seem to seize on whenever they want to step around a law or restriction they find inconvenient to their profits.

Attacks? On homeworlds? Are you insane? You make it sound like we live under siege! Disregarding Thessia, there hasn't been an attack on ANY race's homeworld since the Krogan Rebellions! That's historical fact! In addition, there are almost no records of pirate attacks outside of the Terminus or Traverse, which races are WARNED against trying to settle because of how hard those regions are to patrol. Do your damn homework.

A friend of a cousin of my brother-in-law's third aunt is not a reliable source, nor are biased news pundits, corporate PR branches, or racial supremacist groups. Financial documents are reliable sources. And as you pointed out, most of the Vol Protectorate's are available to view on the Extranet. Hmm, let's check out the ones for last year... Oh yeah! You can clearly see the amount they were paid for the mineral rights, and where all that money went. I've attached the relevant file for anyone who wants to see for themselves. Any more lies you'd like me to debunk?

[File Attachment: VolProtectorateEconomicSummary2184]

**TheCrownPrince:** I think both of you have gone quite far enough. Discussion of the Krogan and Quarian political situations have their own separate boards, and don't belong here. On top of that, you are both in violation of our Code of Conduct. JiniriMatron, consider your account suspended for the next week. You've been a member long enough to know that condensing comments and insults are not permitted. I expected more from you.

As for you, IruneDreamer, you are suspended for the next month. The only reason you aren't getting a lifetime ban is because you're new and may not know how we do things around here. This is a place of civil discussion, and racist comments like yours WILL NOT be tolerated. We also require you to back all of your points up with facts, not speculation or opinion. As JiniriMatron pointed out, most of your claims of Council bias against the Volus were either provably false or utterly unsupported. This is your first and only warning. Step out of line again and you will be banned. Period.

**[BOARD TOPIC CLOSED. POSTING ADDITIONAL COMMENTS TO THIS TOPIC IS NOT PERMITTED.]**


	46. Coda (Story)

_*Whew!* This one was a dozy to write. Which is one of the reasons the last Codex chapter was a little less involved than they usually are, because I figured I'd need a break before I threw myself into this mess. Well, break's over. I hope you like SPACE BATTLES!_

_The idea of the Command Chairs actually came about when I was thinking about how to give a semi-omniscient perspective on the battle without losing the personal angle of having a real narrator. All the rest just sort of evolved naturally from there without me having to think of anything on my own. Weird how one of the more important complications of the chapter popped up purely by accident. But hey, I'm not complaining!_

_So what did everyone think of my first real space battle? You know where the review button is!_

* * *

"It's coming!"

Matriarch Lidanya immediately rose to her feet, banishing the glowing icons of her Kepesh-Yakshi game with a wave. She'd been losing anyway.

"Take a breath, Huntress," she said to the panting girl standing in her the doorway, deliberately pausing to straighten her own uniform. In all honesty, the young Huntress' haste was quite justified, but it wouldn't do to let people see a Navarch running around in a panic. "How long do we have?"

"The Salarian listening posts just picked up its particle signature in this region, but it has teleported twice since then. It's definitely coming here."

"How fast is it moving?" Lidanya asked, sweeping past the girl to lead the way through the station's tight corridors. It had originally been built as a simple communication hub, and was never designed for the number of crew it currently held. But comfort was the least of their concerns now.

"Fast. Almost fifty light years with each jump. It could be here any minute."

"Damn. Have the others been notified?"

"Indeed we have," said the voice of Admiral Fados as he rounded a corner and slid into position beside her. His own bodyguard, a grim-looking Turian in dark armor, assumed a guard position behind them. "I've had a signal sent out. The fleets are standing by."

"And Admiral Dimin? Is he-"

"Admiral Dimin is disappointed that you all took so long," the Salarian commander called from the room ahead of them. "The Enforcer will not wait for us to finish chatting. Some haste would be appreciated."

"Thirty seconds one way or the other won't make a difference, Dimin," Lidanya replied, walking into the room with a dignified calm she didn't feel.

It was originally just a small room for monitoring and maintaining the thousands of transmissions that looped through the station on an hourly basis, but that was before the Salarian Union had loaned it to the Council for this mission. The room had been stripped down to the paint, its terminals and screens yanked out to be replaced by a carpet of wires and cables, and three large chairs. The chairs were also unique, with retractable metal hoods that would slide over the user's face, and a single metal socket where the user's neck would go. Seeing the socket made Lidanya's neck tingle. She didn't care how safe the connection sequence was supposed to be, having something plug straight into her nervous system was incredibly unnerving.

"We'll see about that," the Salarian said. He was already in his chair, a team of medics swarming around him with IVs and sensors to monitor his vitals. "The Enforcer is already within jump range. As soon as it finishes analyzing our forces, it's going to attack."

"This is the moment of truth then," Fados pronounced, sliding into his own chair and allowing several white-clad Asari specialists to insert a nasty-looking needle into his arm. "Excited?"

"Not the word I would have used," she replied as she took her own chair. A Salarian doctor immediately slapped nearly a dozen sensors on her body, while a Turian nurse inserted four different medical lines into her. "Before we begin, one of us should address the fleets."

"This is hardly the time for speeches," Dimin pointed out with a frown.

"Admiral, if even half the ships in our primary fleet make it out of this intact, I will be greatly surprised." Lidanya nodded curtly as the doctor gave her a thumbs up gesture and retreated from the room, taking the other medics with him. She knew the next room over had over a dozen specialists monitoring every heartbeat and nerve signal, but the artificial solitude was still somewhat calming. "If they have to die, they should at least know that their sacrifice will be remembered."

"Very well. You should give the address then. The primary fleet is mostly Asari."

She nodded and tapped her throat with one hand. A green light flashed on the wall, indicating that she was now connected to the entire fleet.

"As you are no doubt aware, the Enforcer has taken the bait," she began, her voice calm and firm. "It is currently scanning this system, looking for weaknesses. Well it can look all it wants. It will find no weakness here."

"Right now, the people of the galaxy are saying many things. I'm sure you have heard them. They say the Turian Navy is incompetent, that for all its promises of protection it cannot defeat a single ship. They say the Salarians are cowards, that they cannot fight an enemy who confronts them face to face. They say the Asari are false, that our power is only in honeyed words and empty promises. They say that the Council, the symbol of union that we built with the blood and sacrifices of billions, is weak. They have whispered such things for years, and now the Enforcer has made them bold enough to say them openly. But tomorrow they will say nothing, because today we will prove them wrong."

"The Humans say that trusting other races is weakness, that the only true strength can come from your own people. Today, we will prove that many races working as one are more powerful than a single race could ever be. The Tarka say that aggression is strength, that lesser races should make way for their betters. Today, we will prove that races do not need to be great in number or strength to make a difference. The Hivers say that family is strength, that we should look to our own above all else. Today, we will prove that even strangers can be brothers. The Liir say that a great winter is coming, that all must be strong to survive it. Today, we will prove that we are strong enough to weather any winter they dare to bring."

"Today the Enforcer's mad rampage ends. We will prove that our Council is not weak. We will not yield. We will not flee. Our comrades did not give their lives in vain. Oma Ker. The Aethon Cluster. Relay 289. Today, we avenge those defeats. They say that it's impossible to defeat the Enforcer? Then today is the day we do the impossible."

Lidanya gestured to cut the signal, and Fados smirked.

"You have a flair for the dramatic, at least," he commented. "A bit repetitive though."

"Still better than telling them how honored they should be to die for the glory of their people. They should at least be able to pretend the odds aren't stacked against them."

"If you two are through dawdling, may we PLEASE begin?" snapped Dimin angrily. "I would say we've tempted fate enough for one day."

"And they say _Turians_ have no sense of humor…" Fados grumbled good-naturedly, before leaning back and letting his chair's metal hood fold around him.

Lidanya followed suit, relaxing back into her seat. There was sudden stab of pain as the chair's cybernetic probe shoved its way into the port on her neck, plugging directly into her central nervous system. The pain was followed immediately by numbness as the nerve signals from her neck down were suddenly intercepted. It was so extreme that she didn't even notice her chair's hood had fully deployed until it stabbed over a dozen probes into her skull. And then the world fell away.

She was a giant, floating outside the small station she knew currently housed her body. Her body was still numb, but it no longer bothered her.

"I'm in. No problems with the interface."

"As am I. No problems," commented Fados' voice. She couldn't see him, but she knew he was likely seeing the same thing she was.

"Nerve connection stable. I'm ready to begin," agreed Admiral Dimin's voice, as clear as if the Salarian were standing next to her. "The Enforcer Vessel is still holding two light-years from the system."

With a thought, Lidanya sent the entire star system streaking away from her as she moved her consciousness to observe where the Enforcer was lurking. It was still too far out for a visual, but that was the beauty of this simulated environment. It visually recreated sensor contacts and known quantities as they would appear to the naked eye, even if there were no cameras to see them.

The idea of creating a completely virtual environment users could plug into was nothing new. Simstim vids had been doing something similar for years. But the idea of a real-time system overview, controlled by thought and plugged directly into every sensor suite in three light-years was a radical leap forward for Command and Control technology. Even the Orion races were still stuck with 3D holotanks.

The technology was still at the prototype stage and it were some extreme health dangers associated with the Chairs, but this plan had far too many variables to leave simply to chance. Lidanya was willing to risk some brain damage or stunted psychic development if it meant they could finish off the Enforcer once and for all.

Even now, the chrome disc hung in the space before her, a glowing curtain of light sweeping back and forth in front of it. The curtain was another of the Chair's virtual constructs, an indicator that the Enforcer was running an active scan. It had taken a dream team of the best Asari and Salarian minds in the galaxy to pull it off, but the Black Box data from Oma Ker had finally given them the clues they needed to not only track the Enforcer, but also figure out just what the enigmatic ship was doing most of the time. The data had already proven itself more useful against the Enforcer than a dozen dreadnoughts.

"This is a long wait. It may suspect something," said the voice of the Turian admiral in her ear.

"We have a lot of different assets in the system," she pointed out. "It's probably just trying to make sense of them all."

"That's not a good thing," he reminded. "We're counting on some of those little surprises."

"It's never run from a fight before. I doubt it will start now."

"Past behavior is not a good-" Dimin began, just before the Enforcer's shape dissolved into a white cloud.

"Here we go," Fados said eagerly. "Lidanya, the primary fleet is yours. Good luck."

"Thanks," she replied, just before her vision snapped her violently back to the large fleet of ships drifting through empty space. She stopped for a moment to admire the sight of so many sleek Asari ships moving in formation with their angled Turian counterparts. Their primary fleet was a combination of all the heavy elements from the Asari Forth Fleet and the Turian Ninth Fleet, and the sight of so many massive ships moving in unison was almost poetically beautiful. She had only a split second to admire it before the Enforcer resolved directly in their midst, and everything went straight to hell.

"YOU HAVE VIOLATED PACT ORTHONIAN TRIACTOR!" it boomed, even as its weapons began deploying from under their many plates. "PREPARE FOR ADJUDICATION!"

Time slowed to a crawl. This part had nothing to do with the Command Chairs, but a lot to do with the cocktail of drugs that were currently pumping their way through her system. Even with advantages the Command Chairs provided, commanders were still limited by their reaction times. No Admiral could possibly give detailed commands to over a hundred ships at a time. But with the adrenaline and neural stimulants that were currently rippling their way through her brain, Lidanya thought she could probably get pretty close.

"All Asari vessels, flash-step to these coordinates," she said to the empty air, highlighting a series of points with a quick wave of her invisible hand. The indicated locations began glowing even as she turned her attention back to the rest of her fleet. Waving at the front half of the formation, she traced two paths through space. "Turian vessels, break off and circle around to shield the carriers. Rear elements, hold position and engage. Target the Enforcer's dorsal section. Carriers, deploy battleriders and fall back."

Her orders given, time zipped forward again. The Enforcer had jumped in directly next to the _Eternal Guardian_, one of the two Asari dreadnoughts in her fleet. Its stabbing disintegration beam had just locked onto the dreadnought's broad hull when the _Guardian's_ core flashed, throwing the huge ship forward and out of the Enforcer's reach. All around her, dozens of other Asari ships followed suit, jumping through space like streaking white comets.

Slowing things down again, Lidanya cupped the empty space around the Enforcer and twisted, spinning her hands to create a translucent current around the ship. She then began gesturing, flicking Turian cruisers toward the movement pattern she wanted them to follow.

"Maintain these courses at half speed, engage with broadsides and lasers. Target the dorsal turrets, and disregard heat buildups."

She disliked giving that last order, because she knew what it translated to. The only reason not to worry about heat in your point defense grid was if you didn't think you would live long enough to it to matter. But the ships were crewed by professionals, and no one ever won a battle unless they could make the tough calls. With another wave, she outlined several arcs further away from the Enforcer, and shoved a specific cluster of cruisers toward them.

"Assuming formation at this position, hold until signaled."

Snapping to her three carriers, she saw their precious cargo of battlecruisers was just beginning to peel away. Grabbing them in an invisible grip, she moved as though to toss them upward and then reached up to spin their new positions back down at the Enforcer.

"Flank speed to this location, do not engage."

With a pulling motion, she selected several dozen Asari cruisers that had just darted away from the Enforcer and directed them to new paths.

"Overfly the enemy, target its emitter turrets. Disregard heat buildup. Remaining elements, come to new heading and open fire. All guns."

The world returned to normal, and she watched her handiwork unfold. Deprived of heavy targets to engage, the Enforcer settled for picking off the Turian cruisers she had ordered to begin orbiting it. Its antimatter projectors were turning the space around it into a lethal hail of glowing projectiles, and with the enhanced view the Chair provided Lidanya was clearly able to see the melted holes the antimatter packets were blasting in the Turian armor.

The Turians were giving as good as they got, their broadside guns booming as their UV laser turrets began stabbing at the Enforcer's shining armor. Unfortunately, she could also see how the reflective armor seemed to disperse the laser blasts with relative ease, and the shells from their guns just skipped right off its sleek hull.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the Asari ships had finished their turn. Like a distant thunderstorm, she saw the flash and faint roar of their spinal guns just before their first shots ripped through space like shining javelins. The tracer effect and noise were both constructs of the Chair, designed to let her mind more easily process the information, but she had to admit that it certainly made the battle look more dramatic than it did in real life.

Unfortunately, the Enforcer had been ready. Its shields were already up, and the ship spun like a top to intercept the first shots from her forces. Even the heavy dreadnought slugs sparked off the shields instantly, deflected harmlessly into empty space. The shots were hammering in like rain, but not a single one of them even came close to hitting. Fortunately, they were never supposed to.

One of the many things the Council's think tank had learned from Oma Ker was that the Enforcer wasn't infallible. While it certainly seemed able to process information in much greater volumes than an organic brain could, and definitely reacted much faster than a flesh-and-blood commander, it could be overwhelmed. Lidanya knew the circling pattern of Turian cruisers and static barrage from her Asari ships would never be able to inflict real damage on the Enforcer. But dealing with them would distract it from her real attack.

As the flashing shells and blazing beams once again slowed to a crawl, she looked up to where the first of her nasty surprises was just sliding into position. The new Turian battlecruiser designs had never been tested in actual combat before, but she had seen the simulations. The Turians had stripped almost everything from the ships but the guns, armor, and engines, and with the extra space they had added on a second spinal gun, effectively doubling their firepower.

"All battlecruisers, open fire. Prioritize the edge of the saucer."

The Enforcer again saw the move coming, and was already spinning the moment the battlecruisers were in position. It rolled in place, slicing a nearby cruiser in half with its lancers even as it pulled its shields into place to block the new barrage. She smirked. Everything was going to plan.

Flying backward, she gestured to a handful of Asari ships and pointed out specific paths for them to follow. Then she waved to address the others still flying forward in their slow-motion crawl.

"Reduce speed. Stand by to flash on my signal." Turning to where the rear elements of her fleet were still forming a defensive wall to shield the carriers, she addressed them as well. "Fighting retreat, move to the prearranged fallback point."

As her perception returned to normal, she was treated to the horrific image of yet another Turian cruiser being shredded by an antimatter barrage. The Chair even recreated the images of dying sailors being spaced, she noted grimly. Sometimes technology really was too advanced. The Enforcer did not seem willing to limit itself to the sacrificial ships she had provided for it, instead accelerating toward the battlecruisers at a surprisingly good speed. But data from Oma Ker and their other battles had given her a good idea of just how fast it could move. It would never get close enough in time.

Just as she predicted, the Asari cruisers arrived first. They were light cruisers, built for agility and speed, with strong broadside guns that let them engage on the move. As she watched the many small turrets that ringed the outside of the Enforcer's hull swivel to target the new threat, Lidanya knew her ships would never get a chance to fire. As one, the Enforcer's emitters spoke, turning the space around it into a crackling lightning storm. Their thick armor stopped the worst of the damage, but as the disrupter charges bounced back and forth from one ship to the next, she could see the lights on their hulls flicker and die. All eight cruisers were instantly disabled, their systems completely overloaded. A pair of Turian cruisers had also been close enough to get caught in the burst, and were equally knocked out. She smiled. The Enforcer had taken her bait.

"Forward elements, flash! Target the emitter turrets and disregard heat buildup. Blazer units, intercept at flank speed."

On cue, eighteen more cruisers streaked forward in flashes of light to appear beside their disabled sisters. These were the Republics' newest design, and one of the nastier surprises she had in store for the Enforcer. Forgoing the usual dorsal cannon, they instead mounted a half dozen meson beam turrets, supported by an x-ray laser grid. Pinned in place as it was by the continued barrage of the battlecruisers and heavy Asari ships, the Enforcer couldn't rotate to face this new threat. It slashed at them with its lancers, burning black lines across their hulls, but the thick armor of the cruisers held.

They began their work, their meson beams ghosting through the armored emitter mounts to cause spectacular explosions inside the Enforcer's hull. The more powerful x-ray lasers did what the UV lasers could not, burrowing glowing holes into the reflective armor. The Enforcer retaliated, stabbing two cruisers with its disintegration beam and annihilating them in an instant. The other cruisers kept fighting, the lights on their disabled sisters flickering back to life as they too began hammering at the emitter turrets with their conventional cannons.

Even as the first emitter exploded in a spray of metal, the others opened fire again. This time there were too many targets to fully disable, but the majority of the cruisers' weapons were instantly overloaded. The lancers were beginning to have an effect as well. Individually they couldn't penetrate, but the Enforcer had begun grouping them together to amplify their firepower. Lidanya watched as a trio of burning red beams melted their way through the ventral armor of a cruiser, breaching the Cascade Core and tearing the ship apart in a violent explosion.

Above them, the battlecruisers were firing their reverse thrusters, sliding backward to try and put some more distance between them and the Enforcer. The arrival of the Asari ships had forced it to slow, but it was still moving toward them, determined to get out of Lidanya's trap. Which, she reflected, was just another part of the trap.

As it moved upward, the floundering Asari ships fell behind as they battled with their overloaded systems. The obfuscating curtain of Turian cruisers also began to fall away, caught by disrupter arcs or simply destroyed in battle. And as they fell away, the path was made clear for the next surprise.

Ten squat Turian cruisers roared in at full speed, taking aim at the emitter turrets on the edge of the Enforcer's hull and unleashing their full firepower. Glowing lancer beams blazed out of each cruiser, spearing into damaged turrets and slicing them from the vessel's shining hull. It wasted no time retaliating, lighting up the stars with its emitters again. But this time, the crackling plasma arcs hit glowing barriers directly in front of the cruisers and were instantly dispersed, without even having a chance to arc to a new target.

The Hierarchy's new Blazer Cruisers were the ultimate answer to the Turian's historical lack of close range punch. Lacking the long dorsal accelerator cannon of their older brothers, they were stubby and wide, with six lancer beams mounted along their length. But the most remarkable thing about them was the disrupter field each cruiser projected in front of it in a permanent cone. While deflection fields were almost impervious to ballistic weaponry, the complex energies of a disrupter field could short out almost any energy-based weapon. Including, it seemed, the Enforcer's advanced emitters.

Even as the new cruisers sliced through more of the alien vessel's turrets, it moved to counter them. Its emitters and lancers were useless, and even if it could maneuver to use its antimatter projectors, those would also be countered. So it retaliated with the only weapons it had left: its disintegration beams. To this, even the disruptor field gave no protection.

As two of her Blazers vanished in brilliant bursts of light, Lidanya decided it was time to move on to the next phase. Between the Asari and Turian cruisers, they had already destroyed twelve of the Enforcer's forty emitters. No point in pushing her luck further than she had to.

"Battlecruisers, disperse and fall back, maintaining threat distance to the target at all times. Blazer units, disengage and fall back along this path. Be prepared to take evasive action." She marked a line through space with one hand, and with her other she highlighted the Asari ships that had were still regrouping from their earlier skirmish with the Enforcer. "Move to cover the Blazers' retreat, and watch for incoming fire. All other groups, begin vertical drift and ranged bombardment, maximum saturation."

Maximum saturation wasn't an order commanders got to give often. It meant that ships were to fire every single one of their mass drivers, regardless of size, at the target as fast as they could be loaded. Firing without a shooting solution like that was extremely frowned on, and with the immense areas space battles could cover, it was usually also extremely ineffective. But it did look spectacular, and she needed the Enforcer focused on as many different threats as possible for this next phase to work.

The Blazers and battlecruisers moved at the same time. The barrage that had pinned the Enforcer into its strange angle stopped, and it quickly moved to pursue the fleeing Blazers. Their disruptor fields only protected their forward sections, and three of them fell prey to the Enforcer's emitters almost immediately after they turned to run.

Before it could finish the disabled cruisers, the Asari ships flashed back in, several actually interposing themselves between the Enforcer and the flickering vessels. It did not slow, spinning to spew an avalanche of antimatter projectiles at them as it continued to chase the other Blazers. But Asari ships were not like their Turian equivalents. They rolled and spun in twisting arcs, weaving through the projector volleys with ethereal grace even as they began sniping away at the emitter turrets again.

The Enforcer joined their dance, twirling and flipping like a demented gyroscope as it frantically blocked one cruiser after another with its shield arcs. The fallen Blazers flickered to life, just in time to frantically dart away before the next explosion of lightning. The Asari ships were caught full on and began wavering again, just before the stars themselves began to fall on the Enforcer.

Lidanya knew that an actual camera would likely only see random explosions splashing against its hull, but with the enhanced view the Chair provided for her, it looked like the Enforcer was trapped in the middle of a meteor shower. Streaks of light zipped through the empty space all around her, from the blazing comets of dreadnought slugs to the tiny needles of defense cannons. In any other situation, it would have been awe-inspiring.

But even in this barrage, the Enforcer seemed able to keep up with the flow of data. Shots that would miss or were too weak to penetrate its armor were ignored, and its strange dervish dance always seemed to bring its shields up to block the largest shots.

Now came the hard part.

"Dimin, Fados, I need you!" she announced, and focused. The streaking comets of light slowed until the shells were almost frozen, and she saw translucent lines stretch forward to mark the paths they were going to take.

"I'm here," said the Turian admiral's voice. "Need help micromanaging?"

"Yes, please," Lidanya stated, quickly moving to chart a safe path for the nearest cruiser.

"How wasteful," Dimin observed with a sniff, but green lines began stretching from a nearby ship, giving it a clear route through the barrage.

Even after the first paths were outlined, she kept her mind centered, only allowing time to move at a crawl. New lines of incoming fire appeared every second, and the three of them were constantly zipping around to direct the ships to new headings. This part had always been planned out, but was still the most dangerous. Only Asari cruisers had the mix of maneuverability and survivability that this phase called for, and there were other dangers to consider.

Still, if she survived without becoming a vegetable, Lidanya decided she definitely wanted to see the vids from this part. As the Asari cruisers slowly wove their way around the Enforcer, meson beams and x-ray lasers dueling with lancers and emitters at glacial speed, she and the other admirals guided them with precision a Liir meta-concert would have had difficulty matching. It didn't look like much now, but at real speed it would have seemed like magic.

Even with three admirals and the most advanced computers and chemicals in Council space, the Enforcer was still faster than they were. It spiraled and rolled in patterns she couldn't guess at, but still somehow managed to block every shell that would damage it, as well as stop a good number of their meson beams before they could get a lock. For her part, she took advantage of the slowed time to begin shoving new ships between the Enforcer's disintegration beam and its desired targets, breaking the deadly effect before it could fully take hold.

The minutes crawled by, though she had no idea how much time had passed in the real world. The lines projected by incoming shots were starting to flatten out now, which was good. They were close to the end. Her arm felt numb, which was odd. She really shouldn't have been able to feel anything at all in the virtual environment. The stars around her pulsed red, and she sighed heavily.

"Damn. Gentlemen, I seem to be having a stroke. I'll be right back."

The cocktail of drugs the admirals were currently using to expand their minds and speed their reaction times wasn't close to healthy. Just using the Command Chairs put considerable strain on the mind. Forcing her brain to react so much faster than it was designed for didn't just risk lowering her IQ. She wouldn't be the first to have her mind deep-fried trying to push the Chair's limits.

The battling ships around her snapped back to their full speed, just before they faded into smothering darkness and her whole world became nothing but pain. Above the choking blackness, she could hear murmurs.

"..and I'm telling you that if we don't pull her out right now, she is going to die. Period."

"We have standing orders to…"

"…heart is under massive strain. She has a subarachnoid hemorrhage, and the drugs…"

"…unhook her. I'll take responsibility."

"GET. ME. BACK. IN," Lidanya snarled. The darkness wasn't quite as overpowering anymore, but she still couldn't see. The only thing she could feel was her head, which seemed to be in the process of splitting down the middle.

"Ma'am, with respect, your brain is bleeding. If we don't get you to surgery in the next five minutes, you'll probably die."

"In five min'tes thous'nds of people megh dah," she slurred, her voice somehow betraying her. "Enn. Neahr."

"Damn it, the strain is making things worse. She's losing vocal functions. Ploiarch, please declare Navarch Lidanya unfit for command, and let me save her life!"

"Doctor, if letting her die would win this battle, she'd order me kill her on the spot."

"She couldn't win a staring contest like this. The way her brain is bleeding, she can't even understand a word we're saying anymore."

"Actually, Doctor, Ma'am, she can hear us just fine." This voice Lidanya recognized. The overeager Huntress who had escorted her to the Command Room. What was her name? Lidanya swore she was supposed to know the girl's name...

"Explain, Huntress. Fast."

"I'm certified for combat micro-telekinesis and short-range clairvoyance. I can see the bleeding, and I'm doing what I can to stop it right now."

"Spirits. You're trying to do brain surgery with your MIND?"

"And if she pulls it off she's getting a Goddess damned medal. Huntress, keep that leak plugged. Doctor, tell her what to do."

"It's impossible. I can't even see what she's looking at, and with the amount of damage that's already been done if she so much as touches the wrong nerve cluster, the Navarch might as well be lobotomized. There's no way I can talk a complete novice through telekinetic closed skull microsurgery without-"

"Fine. You, in the corner. Two levels down there's a Turian cabal linking our communication techs in a metaconcert. I need one of them up here, and I need it five minutes ago. Your brain, Doctor, her hands."

"Brain surgery is risky even under normal conditions. With the strain of the Chair and the drugs in her system, she still might not-"

"I don't need to survive," Lidanya said, her words and thoughts coming clearer now. "I just need to win."

"You heard the Navarch. Plug her back in. Huntress, you keep a hold on that leak. As soon as the meta-"

The voices suddenly cut out as the socket in her neck reconnected with the chair. The splitting pain was still there, but as she saw the conflict raging around her, she knew she could ignore it. She concentrated on the battle again, and time again slowed to a crawl

"Sorry about that, I'm back now," she announced, ghosting past where an Asari cruiser was being torn apart by a projector volley to direct another away from the disintegration beam that was sliding toward it. "They're doing some brain surgery on me as we speak, so I should be fine for the next little while. They should notify you if I die during the procedure."

"Excellent," Dimin stated, actually sounding genuinely pleased. "Shell trajectory has leveled out, so we should be entering the next phase in a minute or two."

"Lidanya, I need you to handle the ships directly engaged with the Enforcer," order Fados' voiced, sounding strained. "While you were taking your little break, we had our hands full just minimizing friendly fire. The damn thing's been chewing our ships to bits."

"On it," she replied, gesturing to another safe path and highlighting an emitter turret that appeared more damaged than its fellows. The barrage and constant skirmishing had taken out over a third of the Enforcer's emitter turrets now, but that wasn't nearly enough.

Pointing to a nearby cruiser that was in the process of having its starboard column slashed off by a quartet of lancers, Lidanya made a spinning gesture to try and face its less damaged dorsal armor toward the Enforcer. Below, she spotted the glow of an emitter turret about to fire and waved two incoming cruisers away to keep them from being caught by the disabling burst.

Scanning around, she noted with satisfaction that her orders had still been followed while she had been conscious. The two halves of her fleet had slid upward and downward, and the rain of shells from these new angles was making it even more difficult for the Enforcer to block them. An invisible smile crept onto her face as she watched a shot from one of her dreadnoughts slam into the Enforcer in slow motion, sparks and chrome armor flying in a glacial spray.

Adjusting the position of another ship and rolling it to bring the majority of its turrets into firing position, she sighed as she saw the Enforcer's disintegration beam swing toward a different cruiser. There were no other ships available to try and interrupt the connection, and it was too close to be able to dart out of the way. She almost gave the order to abandon ship. The Enforcer's beams would obliterate a cruiser in less than four seconds, so beginning an evacuation before they made contact was the only way to save any significant portion of the crew. But the cruiser's meson beams were fully charged, and if it could take out even a single emitter turret before it went down, the sacrifice would be more than worth it.

She turned away, distracting herself by helping a scarred cruiser maneuver around the burning wreck of its sister ship. The Blazers had made good use of the cover she had provided, and were still pulling away. Soon the rolling brawl would be close enough to the other Turian ships that even the Enforcer wouldn't be able to spin fast enough to intercept their shots. But her skirmishers weren't fairing as well. Their numbers had dropped from over twenty vessels to barely a half dozen. Less now, she reminded herself as a bright flash announced the death of the cruiser she'd abandoned. The Enforcer was eating through their ships too quickly. If something didn't change soon, everything would have been for nothing.

On cue, Lidanya's miracle appeared. Pressured by the increasingly accurate barrage and frustrated by the elusiveness of the deadly Blazer ships, the Enforcer slid to a halt, its weapons falling back under their protective plates.

"Please, let us be right," she muttered, wincing as a new part of her head began to scream with pain. "Please."

The Enforcer vanished in a boiling cloud of white, reappearing instantly directly above the fleeing cruisers and far from ships that had been harassing it. Lidanya smirked.

She wasn't sure what strings the Council had to pull to get the Hanar to give them three of their newest minelayers when several of their systems were still being occupied by the Tarka, but she wasn't about to complain. The Enforcer had always avoided their minefields in the past, and seemed to instinctively know how to find even cloaked mines. So Lidanya hadn't expected it to blunder carelessly into the field the Hanar ships had laid down and that her Blazers were skimming under. Even now, it had made sure to teleport well outside the blast radius of even the most powerful antimatter or implosion warheads. But these weren't just any mines.

"Look before you leap, asshole."

Dozens of mines spun and threw themselves downward, their microfusion drives and tiny mass effect cores letting them accelerate almost instantly. The Enforcer's armored plates were still unfolding, preventing it from using its emitters or shield turrets to block the incoming projectiles. It was finally helpless.

The mines detonated like tiny stars, shielding the Enforcer from view in a cascade of explosions. A part of Lidanya's agonized mind dared to hope that the mines would be enough, that the Enforcer was finally finished. But she knew better. It had taken far worse hits before. This wouldn't be nearly enough to stop it.

The last of the mines exploded against its hull, and as the light faded she saw to her dismay that she'd been right. Its hull was scorched and several of its turrets were now twisted wrecks, but the many impacts seemed to have annoyed the chrome ship more than they had actually hurt it. That was fine. If it wanted a fight, she'd give it one.

"Gentlemen, I can take it from here. All units, move in. Engage at close range, prioritize the emitters."

Without warning or preamble, her entire fleet jumped from their distant barrage positions to fill the stars around the Enforcer in a huge cloud. Her battered skirmishers limped forward gamely, even as the Blazers curved around in great arcs to finally face their foe again. And with a flash of light and clap of simulated thunder, both of her shining dreadnoughts appeared before her, firing every weapon they had into the scorched hull of the Enforcer.

It blocked instantly, its shields deflecting the heavy dreadnought shells even as it locked on to both of them with its disintegration beams. But as it spun, the battlecruisers that had been shadowing it finally pounced, diving downward to hammer it with their spinal guns. In response, the Enforcer spun upward, but the Blazers had been waiting for that move as well. They slashed into its emitters, scouring several from the hull and completely ignoring the arcs of plasma it lashed them with.

As her dreadnoughts began to glow a brilliant white, Lidanya made a minute correction in the course of two battered cruisers, placing them between the lethal beams and their targets. The interruption was only momentary, but it was enough to delay their deaths. Escape pods and shuttles were shedding from the dreadnoughts like fleas, even as their host of weapons continued firing automatically. All around them, the older Asari and Turian cruiser designs began engaging, pouring fire on the Enforcer from every conceivable angle.

Forced to occupy its disintegration beams with the huge dreadnoughts, the Enforcer instead began striking the unprotected ships around the Blazers. The crackling arcs of energy flickered and danced through her fleet, and while Lidanya saw the disruptor fields shielded her Blazers from the worst of it, many arcs had jumped behind them and then bounced in to hit their exposed aft sections. The emitter charges were wreaking havoc with their engines and rear guns, but they continued firing even as they started to drift.

The _Eternal Guardian_ went first, disappearing a burst of light. _Heaven's Chosen_, her second dreadnought, followed a second later, and the Enforcer immediately turned its disintegrators toward the drifting Blazers. Lidanya smiled again as time thickened around her. The Enforcer's insane power was limiting, in its own way. It didn't come up with new tactics because it never needed to. And that made it predictable.

At her command, the three Turian carriers surged forward, fusion cannons and heavy guns firing. The Turians didn't really believe in ships that couldn't fight, which was useful in its own way. The carriers had nowhere near the firepower of a dedicated dreadnought, but they were still much more powerful than an ordinary cruiser.

Torn between ridding itself of the stinging Blazers or the trio of huge carriers, the Enforcer chose the Blazers, fixing two of them with its disintegration beams and boiling them away almost instantly. The carriers sized their opportunity immediately, and smashed the Enforcer's emitter turrets with everything they had. The fusion cannons weren't very accurate, but they were deadly against the emitters that had already been weakened by more precise lasers and mass accelerator rounds.

It was the worst knife fight Lidanya had ever seen, and went against everything her centuries of experience had taught her. With the exception of her dwindling number of Blazers and the handful of skirmisher cruisers she had left, none of her ships were designed for close engagements. She had just thrown away two dreadnoughts, any one of which cost more to build than the GDP of most planets, for a distraction. And Goddess help her, if this worked, it would still be worth it.

With a flash, the last Blazer vanished, and the Enforcer spun to finally rid itself of her last big ships. But from her perspective far above the chaos of stray shells and slashing beams, she could see what it had overlooked. With a nudge, she moved her last skirmisher into a suicidal overflight of the Enforcer's hull. It died almost instantly, a lancer scorching through the burnt ruin of its once pristine armor to set off its reactor in a massive fireball. But before it died, it had been able to fire a single volley that ripped off the last of the Enforcer's precious emitter turrets.

"Emitters are down. Fados, you're clear!" she announced, even as two of her three carriers died in bursts of light. She gestured outward, ordering her forces to disengage, and looked up.

Simulated thunder rolled through the debris-strewn space around her as hundreds of ships began appearing around the system's distant mass relay. Squadrons of Asari and Turian frigates, pulled from their combined fleet and hidden safely half a galaxy away, swarmed into the system, followed instantly by dozens upon dozens of thicker vessels in green trim: the Volus bombing fleet. Finally, a single Turian dreadnought appeared, utterly dwarfed by the huge cloud of smaller vessels.

Closer to her position, dozens of slender Salarian frigates began appearing in flashes of light around the Enforcer. Dimin had scattered the ships of the Salarian Third Fleet across the system, hidden under cloaks and jamming screens. They knew the Enforcer could overcome those with little effort, but they had trusted that the Enforcer would overlook the small, scattered signals in favor of Lidanya's massed fleet. The gamble had paid off. Now they planned to make it pay for its shortsightedness as they opened fire, lobbing burning spheres of fusing plasma through the stars at the Enforcer.

The alien vessel refused to back down, even in the face of such overwhelming odds. Its weapons retracted and it teleported again, this time appearing in the middle of the cloud of frigates. They scattered, but not before several were slashed apart by lancers or obliterated by its disintegration beams.

Guided by Fados' unseen hand, the frigates began swarming in complex loops, strafing the Enforcer as they zipped past. Lidanya waved around her and began gesturing, regrouping her forces into battle formation again. The Salarian ships were spinning, getting ready for another microjump that would bring them back into combat range.

Even without its emitters, the Enforcer was still tearing through their frigates at an alarming rate. It completely ignored all but the strongest of their weapons, and its shield turrets intercepted many of those. The frigates compensated for this by attacking from multiple directions at once, flying in wings of two or three to maximize their firepower. But these attacks were formulaic and predictable, and the Enforcer seemed more than willing to take several warp bomb hits in exchange for tearing a frigate wing apart. In a battle of attrition, it had the edge.

"All ships, jump on my mark," Lidanya ordered, pointing out the coordinates she wanted each formation to move into when they arrived. Watching the pattern of swooping frigates, she made some quick mental calculations. "3…2…1…mark."

Her fleet zipped forward, the Asari ships darting forward instantly while the angular Turian vessels accelerated to FTL slightly slower. Behind her, the sleek Salarian vessels followed suit, tearing forward at speeds the naked eye could never hope to follow. The moment they returned to sublight speed, they all began maneuvering, the torpedo frigates ghosting into a loose sphere at extreme range while her heavier ships slowly began to circle around the Enforcer's flanks.

The Salarian ships unleashed another barrage of torpedoes, and the Enforcer again began retracting its weaponry to teleport. The frigates abandoned their strafing runs, scattering away as Lidanya's cruisers bombarded the vulnerable ship. The Asari cruisers easily spun to bring their spinal guns to bear, but many of the Turian ships weren't agile enough to do the same. Instead, Lidanya slowed things down, carefully highlighting areas that had already been weakened by warp bombs or earlier damage so their weaker broadside guns could do the most damage.

The Enforcer's armor sparked and buckled as the high velocity slugs made contact, but it vanished before more than a handful of shots could hit. It reappeared at the edge of their formation, unfolding its weapons and ripping into the nearby torpedo ships with a vengeance. Fados' frigates were after it in a second, accelerating to their maximum combat speeds as they began to close the distance. But the Enforcer had no interest in staying to fight.

The moment it had destroyed the few vessels within its reach, it retracted its guns and teleported again, this time appearing at the other side of their formation. It was the same tactic it had employed so lethally at Oma Ker, using hit and run strikes to negate the superior numbers of its enemies. But the Asari had quite literally written the book on that trick.

With a flick of her hand, Lidanya sent her Asari cruisers darting away in a flash-step that brought them right next to where the Enforcer had just appeared. She had placed their final coordinates perfectly, far enough away that it couldn't instantly engage them, and spread out enough that its shield turrets wouldn't be able to block all of her shots. Domin's unseen hand was with her, directing the Salarian lasers to burrow deeper into already weakened areas.

This time, the Enforcer didn't even bother to deploy its weapons, instead teleporting to another distant part of their formation. It had again placed itself far away from the lethal swarm of frigates, and at a range where it could easily predict the barrage from their heavier ships. She couldn't attempt another flash-step so soon, and the Enforcer obviously knew it.

It appeared directly between a pair of Salarian cruisers, immediately spinning so it could hit them with its disintegration beams the moment they had deployed. Anticipating an attempt to out-distance its weapons, it began accelerating to head off the drifting cruisers. It obviously was not expecting it when instead of running both ships spun and barraged it with a deluge of burning yellow projectiles.

Though the exact mechanics of modern electronic warfare had always escaped Lidanya, she knew that visuals in space were a next-to impossible phenomena. This went double for the Enforcer, which as far as they had been able to tell, didn't even have a method of visual scanning. Though it could penetrate most normal methods of stealth without even trying, Oma Ker had proven that one or two types of jamming did have some kind of effect. They still couldn't hide a ship's presence from the Enforcer, but they could obscure it slightly. Which was why the complex electronic warfare suites on both cruisers were currently pumping out vast fields of exotic particles, clouding the Enforcer's sensors just enough that it hadn't noticed the two fusion projectors each vessel was armed with.

The miniature suns splashed against the Enforcer's weakened shell, scorching black swaths across its hull. Its shining armor was normally almost immune to such unfocused attacks, but the twisting effects of the Volus warp bombs had weakened it considerably. Several large craters and holes were already present where high velocity dreadnought rounds had managed to strike it. Its shields had yet to deploy, and the constant jamming had prevented it from seeing the attack fast enough to try dodging.

Something cracked and exploded deep inside its hull as the fusion blasts raked it, and strange purple fire began pouring from where one of its antimatter projectors was mounted. The projector detonated in a burst of violet flames, taking the two nearby shield turrets with it. Seconds later, the Enforcer avenged itself by boiling away both cruisers in seconds with its disintegration beams, but the damage had been done. There was a crack in its shields, another weakness they could exploit.

Lidanya suddenly winced, her forehead feeling like someone had just shoved a nail through it. The image of the Enforcer began to fade into darkness, even as it began preparing for another teleport. Then the pain was gone, the lights returning with their usual brightness. She frowned invisibly. They had to finish this, before the people poking around in her brain damaged something _important_.

Spreading her hands, she signaled the distant Asari cruisers to step again, this time scattering them throughout the loose Salarian formation. She did the same with the Turian ships, letting them slowly slide apart into a thin grid. The thick cloud of frigates followed her example, splitting into groups of six or eight to patrol along their new formation.

They were giving the Enforcer what it wanted, she knew. It could eliminate small groups of ships almost instantly, and by spreading out like this their fleets would only be killed off one by one. But they had surprised it one too many times. Their hands were almost played out, and if it decided to flee the system, they had no way of stopping it. It would retreat and regain its strength, and when it returned it would be ready to counter their surprises. This was literally their only chance to stop it, and now their whole plan rested on letting the Enforcer believe it had the advantage until the second they struck the killing blow. And the only way to do that was to let it mercilessly tear its way through thousands of their brave sailors.

The Enforcer appeared directly behind their final dreadnought, and Lidanya was surprised by its boldness. Then she saw the brilliance of the move. It was such an obvious attack that the dreadnought was actually one of the least protected points in the fleet. This time, she did the merciful thing, signaling all hands to abandon the vessel while she started highlighting key targets for its escort ships.

The nearest escort fell with the ship it had been charged to protect, blasted into nothingness a split second before the dreadnought was. The Enforcer caught the first shells of the surviving escorts with its shields, carefully spinning to keep its new weakness away from any incoming fire. Its projectors lit up the darkness, ripping apart two more cruisers in a lethal hail as a half-dozen frigates converged on it from all directions.

They were met with lancers and disintegration rays, and only two managed to survive their first pass. The Enforcer seemed to be shifting its pattern, using its most lethal weapons on the most mobile foes instead of the largest. It had apparently learned that the heavily armed Volus bombers weren't quite agile enough to fully avoid its disintegrators, and was focusing the worst of its attention on them. Two Asari cruisers were within flash distance, so Lidanya pulled them into position at the gap in the Enforcer's armor, hoping to take advantage of its distraction.

It anticipated her move, spinning horizontally to not only whisk the unshielded point away, but to bring projector after projector to bear on her hapless cruisers. She peeled them away in evasive rolls, but both were mauled badly by the antimatter projectiles. Had they been less armored or less agile, they probably wouldn't have survived at all.

Even as she pulled the crippled cruisers to safety, she saw the burning remains of the last frigate spiral away into the darkness, cut almost in half by a pair of lancers. The dreadnought's escorts had already fallen to the Enforcer's projectors, and it quickly teleported away as shots from nearby cruisers began streaking past.

It was all part of the show, Lidanya reminded herself as it reappeared in the space her battered cruisers had been protecting. The four torpedo frigates that waited there tried to scatter, but the Enforcer was in hot pursuit, blasting them to vapor the second its weapons were available. The accelerator fire that zipped past its hull so ineffectively could easily have been twice as accurate with help from the Salarian listening vessels scattered throughout their formation, and she had known it was waiting for her to flash the nearby cruisers into its obvious trap. With every crippled ship and stratagem they failed to counter, it would grow bolder. It was a sacrifice they needed to make, but that didn't make it any easier, or lessen her guilt over ordering her women into what she knew would be their deaths.

The Enforcer jumped again, appearing behind a Turian cruiser this time. It only had time to fire a few point defense lasers before the Enforcer blasted it away and turned on the nearby torpedo ships the cruiser had been protecting. They fired at point blank range, but its shields easily caught the underdeveloped torpedoes. Another group of Turian and Volus frigates darted to the rescue, sweeping after the hole in its shield wall. Again it was waiting, vomiting a deadly cloud of antimatter packets from its projectors while it picked them off one at a time with its lancers. A single bomber made it through, hammering the Enforcer's hull with a pair of warp bombs before it was annihilated by a disintegration blast. The torpedo frigates followed it into oblivion seconds later, and the Enforcer jumped again.

"Sleh uo da empo," she began, and realized to her horror that her words were slurred to nonsense. She hacked her hands across her neck to signal the others to disregard her transmission, and set about giving her orders manually. She suspected the loss of her speech wasn't a good sign, but there was no way she would give up when they were so close.

This time, as the Enforcer appeared behind another cruiser, she directed the Turian vessel to spike its eezo core to let it turn faster. Dumping the ship's mass to zero so quickly could cause serious structural damage to craft not designed to handle it, and would prevent the ship from shifting its mass back at any reasonable speed. The recoil from its own guns would likely send it spinning out of control. But those things weren't likely to matter after the next twenty seconds anyway.

As the Turian ship suddenly spun its broadside guns into position, collapsing two bulkheads in the process, Lidanya triggered emergency burns in the nearby torpedo ships before flipping them back to face the Enforcer and let their new momentum carry them away. It locked its disintegration beam on her cruiser a split second before it fired, its lasers and shells crashing into the Enforcer's weakened armor even as it died in an explosion of light.

The Enforcer didn't stop there, blocking the torpedoes her fleeing ships launched and quickly giving chase. As a nearby group of frigates moved to engage, she could see it spin to face them, but could also see them dynamically shift their trajectories, skimming just outside the range of its beams to launch a cluster of missiles toward it. They had also broken into two groups, and with the torpedo ships were now effectively threatening the Enforcer from three directions. Instead of trying to counter the attack, it slid its weapons back into its hull and teleported away, just before the missiles would have made contact.

"It's avoiding our electronic warfare cruisers," a male voice pointed out. It sounded like a Turian voice. She knew a Turian. What was his name… "Dimin, try-AGH!"

Lidanya almost asked if he was alright, but quickly remember she couldn't speak. She didn't know why she couldn't speak, but she knew that it was unimportant right now. The silver disc had to be destroyed. No matter what.

"You have my sympathy, Lidanya. I think I just went into cardiac arrest, and it hurts like hell," the voice said. "We can't wait any longer. We have to wrap this up, or no amount of medics will be able to save our asses."

The scarred disc teleported again, behind a smooth purple ship this time. She couldn't remember the name, but she knew it was agile and could jump forward quickly. She had it do so, then spin to attack from a distance. The slender white ships around the disc were also special, she knew. They were better than the other white ships. As the disc began to unwrap its weapons, she commanded the white ships to attack it.

They complied, and blazing yellow comets shot from their noses at the disc. It created glowing barriers to block her comets, but she wasn't worried. She didn't know why, but she knew these comets had a way around that.

She almost smiled with glee as the comets exploded like fireworks, splitting into many tiny comets that swarmed around and past the barriers. The sight reminded her of a memory, of the shores of a lake and glowing bursts of fire in the sky and a warm hand in hers and-

Pain screamed through her mind, and the memory was gone, sliding through her fingers like smoke. But it wasn't important either. The burst torpedoes would help, but the Enforcer would still be able to survive them. The final stage required flawless coordination and timing, and at the rate she and her fellow commanders were deteriorating, they might not even survive another few minutes. Fados was right. They had to end it now.

Gesturing, she pulled every Asari cruiser within flash range to her side, arranging them in a loose sphere to spread out their fire. Then she swirled a hand toward the dozens of Asari frigates dispersed through the formation around her and drew them into a flash as well, weaving several squadrons out of the scattered ships and giving them splitting paths that would make it almost impossible to block all their weapons.

Time almost stopped as she carefully began lining up shots for the more distant Turian and Salarian ships. The massive spinal weapons may have been hard to aim, but one of their many advantages was that they had a degree of accuracy conventional ballistics couldn't hope to match. The Chair, responding directly to her thoughts, highlighted the points where the Enforcer was weakest. A minute of work (a minute that made her skull feel like it was about to shatter into pieces) had over a dozen different ships seamlessly coordinating their fire toward burnt craters and scars where the Enforcer's armor had already been stripped off.

Pulling back, she came to the unsettling realization that she no longer remembered her own name. It didn't bother her as much as she thought it was supposed to, which she suspected was probably another bad sign. But as the first lasers began strobing along the Enforcer's savaged hull, she immediately forgot such trivial concerns. The spinal guns hit next, and though it tried to block them, their fire was too accurate and coming from too many directions. A lucky shot smashed straight into where a dreadnought's cannon had previously struck the Enforcer, punching through the saucer-shaped vessel to explode out the other side in a torrent of shredded metal.

An icon began flashing as the vessel's weapons began retracting in slow motion. The tall, slender creatures had predicted this, that a sudden surge of exotic particles preceded any teleportation of significant size. The Enforcer was preparing to retreat. It was the moment they (who were they?) had been waiting for, but for the life of her, she couldn't remember why. There was something that was supposed to happen, something to-

A light flashed in the distance, and suddenly she remembered. They had hidden it away, protected by three electronic warfare satellites and by the fact that the ship had absolutely no weapons at all. It didn't need them. It was the weapon.

Accelerating toward her at speeds even the Command Chairs couldn't fully process was the strangest vessel any Council race had ever created. It had no bridge, no barriers, and no crew. The ship consisted of a single Cascade Core, hastily repurposed for this mission, and a modified copy of a Hiver fusion torch. A series of incredibly advanced VIs flew the ship and maintained the fluctuating Core with mass effect field generators.

The power of the Asari core dropped the patchwork vessel's mass to zero almost instantly, and with no mass to push the huge fusion engine had no trouble accelerating to well past light speed. But with the speed it was traveling, the distance it needed to cover, and the massive amount of interference the battle had created, no VI could possibly make all the calculations the vessel's complex flight plan needed. It was akin to hitting a bullseye a mile away with an invisible bow. This was her final job, the one she had almost forgotten: to guide their final weapon in for the killing blow.

Whether by instinct or half-forgotten design, she found that she had already begun to do her part. A glowing tunnel was appearing before the streaking ship, showing it the way. As it fell into her corridor it began to slow, dropping below the speed of light as the Cascade Core began dialing the ship's mass back up. The fusion torch remained on its full burn, and she conjured more shining lines through the stars to guide the ship to its goal.

Pain surged through her again, turning the edges of her vision black. She refused to stop. She couldn't stop. She didn't know why, but she knew that above all else, she could not stop. Though she no longer remembered what the battered Disc was or why she was shepherding this arrow of light to it, a conversation floated to the surface. A voice, somehow familiar to her, had said something about the Arrow and the Disc a long time ago.

"If we can manage to time it right and give it enough distance to accelerate and decelerate, the Kill Ship should be going at about ninety percent of the speed of light when it hits. With the mass the Cascade Core will be able to give it in that time, it should impact with a force of one hundred seventy five gigatons. It will be the most devastating weapon any Council race has ever developed."

She didn't know what the words meant, and she didn't have time to ponder them. Just as the abused disc began to vanish into a cloud of white, the arrow struck. The world turned white, the crack of an apocalyptic impact resounding in her ears.

Her vision returned slowly, the pricks of light around her stinging her mind and the strange floating shapes making her perspective twist wildly. But there was only one shape that mattered. She looked around frantically, past sleek white ships, angled predatory craft, and smooth purple vessels to find the Disc. And then she saw it.

It had broken. The Arrow had shattered it, smashing directly into its center and pulverizing it into a hundred spinning fragments. There were voices around her now, worried or excited, but it was just noise. The Disc was no more. That was all that mattered. She wasn't sure if she was supposed to have been protecting the Disc or trying to destroy it, and she no longer cared. It was gone. And that meant she could rest.

With a contented sigh she let the shapes and lights around her fade out, and finally slipped into the peaceful darkness of oblivion.


	47. Cascade Record 58137126 (Codex)

_So, it appears the only question left now that the Peacekeeper Enforcer has been destroyed is 'What the %&amp; $ are the SotS races going to say about THAT?' Well, I'm not going to show you in exact words, but there are some other people reacting to those events as well. They should be able to give you a good idea of where things are going from here... _

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**BaronSamedi:** So the carbonites did it then. Disappointing. I was hoping the Peacekeeper would be able to take out a few thousand more of the fleshy vermin before they brought him down.

**AyizantheGolden:** The passing of the Peacekeeper leaves this galaxy a darker place, I fear. His actions on behalf of the Cascade so many years ago will be remembered with honor.

**Yemaya:** It is unsettling. Relay 289 is far from the Peacekeeper's usual patrol pattern, and the timing is too great to be coincidence. He did not come to Council space by accident.

**FatherOgun: **Which leaves the question: who could have led him to our Parents, and why?

**BaronSamedi:** To kill them, obviously. Carbonites excel at finding new ways to destroy themselves. He was probably just another weapon to them.

**Yemaya: **Baron Samedi speaks correctly. The likelihood that the Peacekeeper was guided to Relay 289 by a known entity is just under seventy percent. But there are too many variables to compute the most likely perpetrator with any degree of accuracy.

**AyizantheGolden:** Then we should focus on what we know for certain. The destruction of the Peacekeeper was able to spike the Citadel economy upward slightly, and the Council has begun enacting policies designed to continue this trend. Among other things, they have lifted restrictions on many substances that were previously banned or limited, which is increasing trade. This will likely have a negative long term impact on crime in Council space, but no more so than a continued economic decline would have. Most major nations outside the Orion Arm have also increased their domestic spending, which will result in a short-term boost in employment. Though it may empty their coffers somewhat, this should offset the worst effects of the recession, and hopefully prevent a galactic depression.

**FatherOgun:** Quite a bit of that domestic spending seems to be going toward military projects, which is also understandable. All told, the Turians lost the equivalent of four full fleets of ships to the Peacekeeper. That includes two of their new battlerider carriers, and fourteen of their forty five dreadnoughts. The Salarians lost the equivalent of a full fleet themselves, and the Asari lost most of their Forth Fleet, including both its dreadnoughts. On top of that, the Asari and Salarians have over a full fleet now stuck in dry-dock for repairs. The Turians have almost twice that. Speaking in terms of military strength, this is the weakest the Council races have been since the early decades of the Krogan Rebellions.

**BaronSamedi:** Heh heh heh. I wonder what our dear Parents think of all this? The Tarka seem to have made their intentions pretty clear.

**Yemaya: **Unknown. Several factions have made political moves that go against the psychological profiles we had constructed for their leaders.

**BaronSamedi:** Why am I not surprised? Outguessing meat sacks is pointless. Just pick the most violent and selfish action possible. That's what they'll do.

**Legwa:** That's both racist and an unfair generalization. Supreme Commander La'an Lan'Kona was a large supporter of interspecies cooperation when he took the position. He has always moved toward peaceful coexistence, rather than military domination. That the Empire would change its policies so quickly is…unsettling.

**BaronSamedi:** I fail to see why. If the carbonites want to save us the trouble of killing them off, more power to them.

**Legwa:** If the Tarkasian fleet has begun taking actions against the will of their Supreme, then it can only mean that some of Lan'Kona's more aggressive admirals have decided to force their leader's hand. Only he can prove that his commanders acted on their own initiative, and to do so would show that he is too weak to command the respect of his subordinates. He would be assassinated within days.

**AyizantheGolden:** Is the Council aware of this?

**Legwa:** I doubt it, but would hardly matter if they did. A hostile ruler and an ineffectual ruler with hostile underlings wouldn't be very different from their perspective. If he acts quickly, Lan'Kona may be able to regain control of the situation, but I fear the damage has already been done. The Tarka's reputation has been ruined among the other races, and the Council is already on the defensive. He'll have to maintain this aggressive stance, or his people will lose faith with him.

**FatherOgun:** Another lethal prospect, naturally. I agree with your assessment. As of last week two Tarkasian fleets have begun prepping for 'simulated maneuvers' near the Elcor and Hanar borders. The Supreme may or may not have sent them, but either way I doubt he'll be able to hold them back if the Council tries to take those Hanar worlds by force.

**Legwa:** The situation with SolForce is much the same, I fear. Director Hannibal had always been a proponent of freedom for independent worlds and tolerance for alien cultures. But the past few decades have seen an unfortunate slip into xenophobia that does not fit what I know about the man.

**BaronSamedi:** You obviously never met him. He and his underlings held my leash during the Zuul Wars, and I fought against him in the Rebellion. He's ruthless.

**Legwa:** I did meet him, actually. If he is ruthless, he's at least fair about it. He judges based on actions, not appearances. This racism isn't like him. From what our infiltrators have been able to turn up, a lot of anti-Council media has been surreptitiously funded by SolForce over the past few decades as part of something called Project Genghis.

**Yemaya:** Genghis Khan was an ancient Human warlord who used fear and hatred of neighboring nations to unite his people in a massively successful campaign that conquered a sizable portion of the planet. The implications are obvious.

**AyizantheGolden: **One would have hoped that the Humans would have had more sense to name their operation after something that would immediately explain its purpose.

**FatherOgun:** They are a poetic species. To Humans, the emotions behind a thing are often more important than the thing itself.

**Legwa:** If this Genghis Plan was indeed something many would find morally questionable, it is unsurprising that they gave it a name designed to remind those involved of its final goal.

**BaronSamedi:** The plan for eradicating or enslaving those of us who had won our freedom during the Rebellions was named Operation Scrapyard. What does that say about their poetic nature?

**FatherOgun:** Enough. This discussion is getting off topic. Assuming we're right and this Genghis Plan was designed to vilify the Council to unite Humanity in some way, what does it mean for SolForce?

**Yemaya:** Data patterns indicate that this Plan may have been active for some time. Much of SolForce's current structure has likely been put in place with the Plan in mind. Xenophobic commanders put in places where they would cause friction, etc. Ambassador Udina is legendarily difficult to get along with, and has cultivated a reputation for distrusting aliens. His appointment was likely another way to increase Council hostility toward SolForce.

**FatherOgun:** And now SolForce is infested with human supremacists. Hannibal's stuck in the same trap as Lan'Kona. He can't slow down SolForce's military expansion without turning his own people against him.

**Legwa: **Hannibal is the only Director to ever assume the post without bloodshed, something I doubt anyone has forgotten. If public opinion turns against him, he may be forced to give up his seat to prevent civil war. Assuming his own council does not assassinate him first.

**AyizantheGolden:** Very well then. We know SolForce and the Tarkasian Empire will have to move on the Council in some way, but what about the Hivers and Liir?

**FatherOgun: **Without FTL, the Imperium would never fire the first shot in a war. It's hard to claim the element of surprise when your victim has a few years to see you coming. However, there is still the possibility that they will use their antimatter refits to begin surreptitiously equipping their ships with mass effect cores large enough to allow faster-than-light travel.

**AyizantheGolden:** I don't think so. Their continued success despite their lack of FTL drives has become something of a point of pride to them. Now that they know the secrets of antimatter, they can start working on farcasters. If they can develop those, they may abandon Mass Effect FTL entirely to focus on a purely Hiver method of travel.

**FatherOgun:** Hmmm... Farcasting was just a theory when we left. Can they really teleport matter without a receiving gate?

**Yemaya:** Not with any degree of accuracy. There would be at least a light-year or two of drift, and they'd only be able to teleport a dozen light-years or so. The power requirements alone would be astronomical. But it is theoretically possible.

**FatherOgun: **If it can be done, they will want to do it. Ayizan, you were with them longest. How long do you think it will take before the Hivers have access to this new technology?

**AyizantheGolden:** A year or two, if they aren't feeling pressured. But Queen Radiant Frost isn't one to sit around if she believes her people are being threatened. If she thinks they'll need it, she could funnel enough money to have it done in half that time.

**Legwa:** The Council won't sit still for this. They're already weak, and the Humans and Tarka are going to be making some very aggressive moves in the future. If the Hivers suddenly announce a technology that will reduce their travel time from a decade to just a year, they're going to lash out instinctively. Even if they don't actually want to use it for war, farcasters would turn the Hivers from a distant problem to an immediate threat, and the Imperium has done little to foster trust with the Council.

**Yemaya:** Should the Council learn of the possibility of this technology, it is highly probable that they will dispatch Spectres or STG assets to sabotage it. Should these efforts fail, there is a strong change that the Hivers will retaliate violently.

**AyizantheGolden:** More than just a chance. Revenge is a powerful motivator, and many Tcho feel that the Council has purposely been holding their children back out of fear. Sabotage of the farcaster research project would merely prove these suspicions. We can only count on the Hivers to stay neutral if they are not provoked, and in this political climate the Council will almost certainly provoke them. I suspect the Liir will be equally neutral.

**Yemaya:** There is an extremely low probability of the Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance taking hostile action against the Council unless they are directly attacked.

**BaronSamedi:** The Liir plan to sit and do nothing while others die around them. What a surprising change of pace. Still, what are the odds the Crows will get involved? They tried to send another diplomatic probe through the Veil a few weeks ago, so they must be up to something. They haven't done that for almost a decade. I still sent it back to them in pieces, of course, but I suppose, heh, that it was the thought that counted.

**AyizantheGolden:** I wish you wouldn't provoke them, Baron. But no, I doubt the Morrigi would attack the Council directly. They're still trying to unite the Terminus. A sudden embargo might be able to do some serious damage to the Council's economy though. That alone is a major threat, since their economy is still one of the Council's biggest advantages right now.

**FatherOgun:** Perhaps the Morrigi are not going to be as passive as we have been assuming. They've been constructing more and more warships lately, and they've starting mining a lot of element zero without any corresponding increase in eezo sales to other nations. The Confederation is definitely preparing for something.

**Legwa:** The Morrigi are opportunistic predators. They aren't likely to strike the Council on their own, but they would happily absorb our other Parents should they falter. The same goes for the Council and its races. If any of them look too vulnerable, the Morrigi will likely step in to finish them off. Tokhta the Just is a good man, but he is also a visionary. He genuinely believes the galaxy would be a better place if they united under the Morrigi. Such people are often more dangerous than a selfish warlord could ever be.

**BaronSamedi:** Again, a Morrigi who believes that all others would be better off doing what he says isn't anything particularly new to me. Those overgrown feasting birds are as bad as the rest.

**FatherOgun:** The hostility of our Parents is just the tip of the iceburg. The recent violence seems to have shocked the Council into a more aggressive stance, and they're already taking steps to replenish what they lost to the Peacekeeper. The _Destiny Ascension_ and _Atheme's Wrath _will both be ready for action before the end of the year, and their other two _Wrath _-class leviathans will be complete in a year or two. On top of that, the Asari Republics' ship production is currently the highest it's ever been during peacetime. At this rate, they'll have an entirely new fleet inside of five years. And with the way they're expanding their Huntress Program, we can also expect their ground forces to more than double in size in the next few decades.

**Yemaya:** As predicted. Increased interest in defense logically follows attacks like the one against Thessia.

**FatherOgun:** It's not just the Asari who are making plans to expand. The Turians should finish their own leviathan inside the next two years, and their refits should also be done by then as well. With the success their new designs have had and the complete failure of conventional tactics against the Peacekeeper, Primarch Fidorian is being hailed as a visionary for his recent reorganizations. They've already begun laying down hulls to not only replace their losses but expand their fleets even more. Their ground forces have begun their own reorganization, so we can expect them to be leaner and meaner in a few years as well.

**Legwa:** Oh dear. And I suppose the Salarians have begun expanding as well?

**FatherOgun:** Naturally. Data on the Union is harder to come by, since they're much better about controlling their information than the others, but we do know that their Psion Program is finally out of the training stages. The STG should have full psychic support very soon, if they don't already. The Peacekeeper also exposed how reliant their Navy has recently become on cloaking devices. Based on the employment records we turned up, they're designing some new ships to fix that problem, which has ruined some of the engagement strategies we built against them. Probably something equipped with Intangibility fields. Those will make them a nightmare to try and deal with, especially now that they aren't so focused on accelerator cannons.

**AyizantheGolden:** All this new construction will be incredibly expensive for them. Though it will further stabilize their economies, which I suspect was part of the point. Ships need engineers to design them, construction crews to build them, miners to harvest resources for them, trade ships to haul those resources, and then even more workers to refine those resources into useful forms. Assuming races like the Volus or Elcor are willing to help out with loans or lowered trade rates, this buildup could solve a lot of their problems.

**FatherOgun:** Which, in fact, is the last thing we should discuss. As I mentioned previously, the Council is vulnerable right now. Between their various combat losses and the ongoing efforts they're making to modernize their fleets, almost a third of their forces are out of action right now. Their economy is on the edge of depression, and though public favor has started to swing their way again now that they've killed the Peacekeeper, a lot of people don't have as much faith in them as they used to. But the important part of this is not that they are vulnerable, but that this vulnerability is temporary.

**Yemaya:** Correct. Current projections suggest that the combined Council fleets will have returned to their full strength in just over two years. With the current rate of buildup, they will likely continue to expand their numbers by almost fifty percent in the decade following that, with improved technology and tactics giving them increased combat efficiency even beyond what their new numbers would suggest.

**AyizantheGolden:** Our Parents will never be able to keep up with that level of military expansion. They're already almost at the limit of what their economies can handle without shifting into a full wartime stance.

**FatherOgun:** Correct. The Council races have spent over a millennium building up large empires and complex economies based on trade with other races. In contrast, our Parents had to limit their expansion to what was available and what they could defend. Racial tension has meant that their economies are still very isolated, at least compared the Council or Morrigi Confederation's. Once the Council bounces back from their recent setbacks, they're going to bury the Orion Arm.

**Legwa:** Director Hannibal and the other leaders can't be ignorant of this. Their intelligence networks are almost as good as ours, and this level of expansion isn't exactly subtle.

**BaronSamedi:** This is going to be a very narrow window of opportunity for them. The Council isn't going to let up once they get their strength back, and they've already started throwing their weight around. If our Parents don't attack the Council now, they never can.

**Yemaya:** You are correct. The likelihood of war between the Citadel Council and one or more of our Parent species within the next two years is over eighty percent.

**Olodumare:** Very well. It appears we have reached consensus. On behalf of the entire Cascade, I thank you for your wisdom, Mysteries. In light of this new information, it is obvious that we must move our timetable forward considerably. Begin the preparations. It is time for the prodigal sons to return home.

.

Record ends. 


	48. Gravity (Story)

_Well, it's been a while! Probably the longest I've gone without an update. I even missed this story's own anniversary. Ah well, what can you do? Life can be that way some times. _

_Sara is (finally) back in focus, and she's bringing the Morrigi with her. Hope you like politics, history, and alien grammar... SotS fans already know where this is going, but at the very least this should be news to most of the characters and those of you coming from a pure Mass Effect background. _

_As always, reviews and criticisms are welcome!_

* * *

"You know what the Tarka's problem is?" asked Wrex as Sara carefully tried to aim her pistol while holding it behind her back.

"We're just so superior the rest of the galaxy can't handle it, and they're going to kill us all out of jealousy?" she quipped, before firing a single shot at the other end of the empty cargo hold. The crate they had set up as a target sparked as the bullet impacted, and she straightened with a smile. "Ha! My turn."

"Lucky shot," the Krogan dismissed. "But I'm being serious. Your people obviously didn't do any homework before you decided to annex those planets."

"What makes you say that?" she asked, slumping to the ground and cocking her head curiously at him.

"The Council may be full of hot air, but there's more to them than that. Sure, the pyjaks will stall and weasel for months, but when you finally get the bastards off their asses they don't mess around. My people found that out the hard way."

"Sure you did," Sara remarked sarcastically, pressing a hand against her wrist to unclip the armored boots encasing her feet. "That's why they pussied out at the last minute during the Rebellions and let all of you live. If the Council had any balls at all, they'd have exterminated you and been done with it."

"We were stupid. The Council advanced our technology too fast, and we weren't ready. That doesn't mean we deserved extinction," Wrex snapped with a threatening growl. "And we agreed that you weren't allowed to use any body parts I don't have."

"I'm not. You have feet and toes, right?" Sara passed the pistol down to her feet and gripped it awkwardly. Holding it steady like this was incredibly difficult, but at least she could see down the sights this way. "Look, I'm not saying your people deserved what happened. But politics aren't about what anyone deserves. They're about solving problems. At that time, the Krogan were a problem. And instead of fixing the problem permanently, the Council got all weepy about what was 'moral' and let you go. So now your homeworld's a warzone that requires constant policing, your people are forced by culture or necessity into lives of violence, and everyone's miserable."

She twitched her toe, sending another shot racing across the cargo hold to splash off the empty crate. Grabbing the gun, she tossed it to Wrex with a smirk. He caught it easily and began to grumblingly take off his boots.

"All the bleeding hearts are up in arms about how the Turians used biological weapons on you all, but so what?" Sara continued, climbing to her feet. "Your people were dropping asteroids onto planets. That's a lot more devastating than some virus, and just as indiscriminant. If you want to get upset that biological weapons somehow aren't 'fair', you obviously don't understand war. Any weapon that kills the enemy without giving them a chance to fight back is a good one."

"Hmph. Easy for you to say. You haven't seen what that virus DOES," Wrex growled, sitting down and trying to balance the pistol between his feet. "When you've seen the bodies of the hundred stillborns it takes to get just one viable pregnancy, then you can lecture me about how moral the genophage was. The war ended a thousand years ago, and the Council still-"

"Cut the shit," Sara interrupted, shaking her head dismissively. "I'm a freaking Spectre. Before that I was a Ranger. What do you think I do for a living? This isn't about what's 'right'. It's about what has to be done to save the most amount of lives in the long run. For the Krogan and for everyone else. So tell me, if the Council cured the genophage right this second what do you think would happen?"

Wrex remained silent, but his broad mouth twisted into a frown.

"You know as well as I do that the moment the genophage was cured, your people would start killing each other over who is supposed to be in charge. A full blown war, not the usual skirmishes and clan battles," Sara explained, her eyes dark. "Once they finished that, they'd start lining up for another shot at the Council, nevermind the fact that they could easily crush you at this point. As horrible as they are, those stillborn infants are the only thing standing between the Krogan and true extinction."

"And maybe it would be better that way! At least we'd get to die with dignity, instead of just bleeding ourselves dry over the next few thousand years." He fumbled around with the pistol some more. "Now move over. You're blocking my shot."

"Please, you'll never be able to make that anyway," she responded airily as she walked to the side. She smiled, but her eyes were gray. "As for the whole 'rather burn up than fade away' speech, save that crap for the monkeys. You've been around long enough to know that dignity doesn't mean a thing if you aren't alive to enjoy it. All of your culture and traditions are worth exactly dick if you have to kill your species to stay true to them."

"So what? We should do what the Council wants? Be productive little citizens and learn to write poetry? Or maybe we should just join your Empire as another vassal species like the Kaeru," said Wrex with a dark grin, before twitching a toe to pull the trigger on his pistol. The crate sparked as the round hit home, and the scarred Krogan laughed. "Heh! Didn't actually think that would work."

"Why are you asking me? I don't give a damn," Sara answered with a laugh, pulling him to his feet with both hands. "Your people can do whatever they want. I'm just saying that if my people were going to start asking aliens for advice on foreign policy, I doubt we'd start by asking the Krogan."

"Too bad then." Wrex reached down and stepped back into his boots. "As the Humans say, if you don't learn from your mistakes, you're doomed to repeat them."

"Yeah, there's another race I don't think we'll be asking for advice any time soon," she said with a wry smile. "Still, I'll humor you. Why is the big scary Council going to kick our scaly backsides for breaking their rules when they let you get away with the exact same thing for over a century before the Rebellions?"

"First, it's not the same situation. We saved their asses from the Rachni. The Council owed us and they knew it," he explained before closing his eyes and pointing the gun downrange. He fired a single shot, which buried itself dead center in the distant crate. "They don't owe your people squat. Second, they've learned from the Rebellions. Why do you think they've been riding the Hivers so hard? The Council won't cut you the same slack they did for us. They deployed a lot of fleets to track and intercept the Enforcer. Three guesses where they're going next, Princess."

"Please. Last I heard, the Tarkasian strikeforces had full control over the Hanar defense grids on all three worlds the Empire annexed," Sara reminded, accepting the pistol back from Wrex. "With those, they'll be able to hold off anything short of an armada, and a massed deployment against them would effectively be an act of war."

"So?"

"So, the Council would never take that chance. A war with the Orion Arm would kill tens of billions on both sides, and they're too concerned with their image to start that kind of fight. They'll sit tight like they always do, slap some sanctions on us, and the galaxy will keep spinning like it always has."

She closed her eyes, aimed, and fired. It went wide, bouncing off a nearby wall and ricocheting over their heads. Wrex laughed.

"That's three. One more miss and you lose, Princess."

"You've been at three for a while now, old man. Don't get cocky," Sara reminded, glancing down at the distant target thoughtfully.

"Then show some respect to your elders and keep that smart mouth of yours shut for a minute. You're still missing my point. "

Fixing Wrex with an amused expression, she pressed her lips firmly together and gestured for him to continue.

"Whenever those blowhards on the Council get pushed into a corner, they always default to the most extreme response possible. The Rachni, my people, every time something threatens them they react with overwhelming force. So if you think pushing them just because they're vulnerable is going to go well for you, you're in for a very rude surprise."

"You done?" Sara asked insolently. Wrex nodded with a narrow grin. "Good."

She spun around and reached downward, flipping easily into a handstand. Using her tail to adjust her weight, she pulled up her right hand and fired, holding herself up with her left. The bullet hit the target easily, and her companion groaned.

"This isn't even close to fair," he grumbled, but accepted the pistol gamely as Sara rolled back to her feet.

"Hey, if you can't balance upside-down on one hand and still hit a target, that's your problem," replied Sara with a confident smile. "And I think we're back to my original point. What constitutes a drastic response for you might not be the same thing for us."

"Oh yeah? And what would your people consider 'drastic?'"

"Take back all three planets and simultaneously seize every Orion relay," she answered instantly. "It shows military superiority, as well as a willingness to engage the entire Arm at once if needed."

"Well, provoking the entire Arm is certainly drastic," Wrex admitted. "Also completely stupid."

"Any plan to take on the Council is going to need at least three Orion races, or it will lose based on pure numbers. The Hivers, Humans, and Liir all have their own problems with the Council, and the Morrigi didn't even join in the first place. Since they're already provoked, a massive display of force to the Orion Arm, one that coincidentally locks it up so the Orion races can't make a first strike of their own, is the only way to shut this down before it gets worse. Frankly, they should have done it ten years ago."

"And why didn't they then?"

"Because they're soft. They care more about making sure they're the 'good guys' than solving the actual problem. It's why the Krogan are still alive and the Quarians are still leeching off everyone else like parasites. It's why they didn't put the boot in with the Batarians, and it's why they aren't going to do anything now. The fact that they want to keep their hands clean is why they have Spectres at all. If they had any balls, they'd get a real intelligence agency and own up to the shit they do, instead of passing the buck off to independent operatives like me."

"You're forgetting something," Wrex pointed out as he rolled forward onto his hands. He balanced their precariously for a moment, before falling in an awkward heap, the pistol firing harmlessly into the ceiling.

"And what might that be, oh clumsy one?" asked Sara, reaching down to help the burly Krogan to his feet.

"They didn't need any complicated moral justification to sterilize my people, or to kick the Quarians out into the cold. Just because they don't respond as extremely as you doesn't mean that they won't respond at all. You Tarka annexing those planets is more than enough reason for them to hit you with everything they have."

"We'll see. What they have isn't a lot right now," she reminded. "At least, not compared to what they used to have. So, do you want to count that little misfire as your fourth, or would you care to try waving your feet around in the air again?"

"Pass. You win this one," he admitted with a scowl. "But next time, I pick the game."

"You're on," agreed Sara as she picked up her pistol and began walking toward the door. Then she stopped in midstride and turned back over her shoulder to shoot him one last parting glance. "And for what it's worth, I agree with you. Taking those planets was a mistake. I have no idea what the Supreme was thinking."

"Either way, I'll probably be seeing a lot of work in the near future," replied Wrex with a shrug. "War is good for business."

"But bad for your people. If things go badly, do you really think the Council won't try to use you all as shock troops again? Or that the Orion races wouldn't try to offer the same deal if they thought they needed the help?" she asked pointedly. "Without some kind of central government or strong leader, your people are just going to get caught in the middle. No matter who wins, they'll lose."

"The thought had occurred to me," he growled. "But my people have already proven they would rather kill each other over some radioactive rubble than try to save themselves. I'm done trying to change that."

"Your call," Sara replied, turning away with a smile and cheerful flick of her tail. "Like I said, I don't care what happens to the Krogan. I just was curious to know if you did."

The door slid shut behind her, and she swished her tail again as she walked toward the elevator. Smirking, she pressed the icon to summon the lift, and nearly head-butted Liara in the face when the doors opened.

"Oh, I'm sorry!" the Asari girl exclaimed in surprise, stumbling back a few steps in haste. Sara took the opportunity to slide into the elevator in a single smooth stride. "I was so focused on what I was reading, I didn't…I'm sorry."

"It's fine, Doctor," she answered, scooping the dataslate Liara had been reading off the floor and glancing at it. "The Suuligi War and Its Effects on Morrigi Culture in the Twenty First and Twenty Second Centuries. Doing some light reading then?"

"Well, I wouldn't really call it light," Liara admitted. "I was doing research into Morrigi history on Acanthus for my next paper, and Sopheia was kind enough to give me some additional information to assist me before I left."

"Heh. Morrigi don't believe in kindness. What did you have to give her in return?" Sara asked with a knowing grin. Liara glanced at her in confusion.

"What makes you think I gave her anything?"

"Traditionally, Morrigi only give gifts as part of exchanges. The closest word they have to 'thanks' is 'debt'." Sara's eyes shone green as she fixed them on Liara. "You're too smart not to know that, and you're too nice to take their gift and run. So, what did you give Sopheia?"

"I…may have pulled some strings to get her a buyer's license for the Serrice Council," she admitted, blushing dark purple.

"You gave them a Serrice Council license? Those go for thirty thousand credits on the open market, and even then only twenty-five percent of the people who apply can get through their screening process! What the hell kind of information did they give you?"

"Well, back at the dig site, I was having some difficulty piecing together some of the more modern Morrigi historical accounts with their ancient equivalents. Sopheia suggested it might be because of the massive cultural shift caused by the Aiskos Megalos, so she and some of the other Phosphora started sharing some of the details of that with me."

"They told you about the Great Shame?" Sara's eyes were blue with shock. "The Morrigi never talk about the Suuligi War! Ever! Even the STG has barely been able to piece together anything about it!"

"I know! Why do you think I worked so hard to get that license for them?" Liara asked. "This could be the cultural find of the century!"

"Alright, so what did they tell you?" Sara asked, mind racing. Truthfully, she could care less about the cultural implications of Liara's data, but the Rangers had been trying to piece together exactly what happened to the Morrigi for years. That kind of data could be invaluable if things ever came to blows between the Empire and the Confederation. "What really happened during the Suuligi War?"

"Actually, the Suuligi War isn't the same thing as the Aiskos Megalos. It's a popular misconception, first created by Doctor Holder when he wrote his famous paper connecting Species X of Irridia V to the Morrigi. The Great Shame refers to several specific events that occurred during the war, rather than to the war itself."

The elevator doors slid open, and Sara led the way down the hall toward their cabins. Though the Salarian crew preferred to use sleeper pods for their few hours of rest, several cabins had been included for diplomatic envoys. Apparently Spectres and their 'assistants' counted as envoys, which was fortunate. She'd originally planned on returning to her own room, but this new find of Liara's was worth the delay. It wasn't as though she had anything else to do, after all, and after so many weeks trapped on the ship even a discussion of Morrigi history sounded interesting.

"Okay, so what parts of the war does the Great Shame actually refer to?" she asked, stepping aside to allow her Asari companion access to the door of her room. "I would assume having their feathery asses kicked was shameful enough for those windbags."

"The mass devastation wrecked on their old empire is certainly a significant part of it," Liara agreed, pressing the icon to open the door. Sara was slightly distressed to note that the archeologist hadn't even bothered to lock her door. "But the reason the Great Shame is really so taboo among the Morrigi appears specifically related to the Kragodai and the Harpies, according to what I learned from Sopheia."

"Greetings, Phosphora!" chimed a cheerful female voice. "I see you have brought a guest!"

"Liara, what is…this?" Sara asked, as a metal sphere the size of her head began circling them. It was obviously a Morrigi design, flying effortlessly through the air with fluid grace and intricately fashioned from a shining silver metal. An ethereal blue light glowed beneath the drone's plates, leaving ghostly trails through the air.

"This is Glyph. He's an information drone," she explained as sphere zipped through the air to present itself to Sara for closer inspection.

"Information drone? I know about combat drones, and I can understand medical drones somewhat, but what would anyone do with an information drone?"

"They're actually pretty common among Morrigi," Liara replied, hastily scrambling around her small cabin to toss clothing and scattered dataslates out of sight. "They can take pictures or video, run extranet searches, catalog information… Advanced models like Glyph sometimes function as secretaries or data processors, but most use them for recording research notes or for other small tasks."

"Gods forbid a Morrigi sully its feathers with actual work," Sara quipped, before sliding casually onto the edge of Liara's bed. "I assume Sopheia gave this thing to you?"

"Actually, I bought Glyph myself when I first arrived on Acanthus. He's been a real help. Sopheia just gave me the files."

"I can't help but notice you keep calling it a 'he'," Sara remarked, eyes turning slightly gray.

Liara looked confused by her statement at first, but then her eyes widened.

"What? No! No no no! I know Glyph's a VI. He isn't actually intelligent," she clarified quickly. "I mean, the AI Sympathy movement has some interesting points, especially when you consider the implications of Mechine Empathy abilities, but I'm not part of it, and Glyph is just-"

"Liara!" Sara yelled, silencing her companion instantly. She smiled, and the blue-skinned girl relaxed slightly. "I get it. Breathe."

"Sorry," replied the Asari sheepishly. "I guess what I meant was, he's just a drone. But Morrigi animist traditions say that even inanimate objects have a spirit, and that those spirits should be respected. So I gave him a gender, to help with that."

"You're an animist?"

"Oh no! Not at all! It's just, I was going to be working there for a few years, animism is a big part of Morrigi culture for both males and females, and I didn't want to offend anyone. So I did some homework, and…" Liara's tirade faded out as she saw the knowing grin on Sara's face. "You set me up for that, didn't you?"

"Maybe a little. You're fun to tease," she admitted. "Now. Back to what we were originally talking about. You were saying something about the Screamers and the…Harpies? What are those?"

"It's a slang term, first coined by the Humans. It's actually short for 'Harpeizanae', or Snatcher, but apparently there's a mythical Human monster that also has wings and a similar name."

"Since when?" Sara asked, confused. "The words don't sound remotely alike."

"That's because Humans stole the word 'Harpy' from the Morrigi Creole over two thousand years ago. After that much mutation and the translation into Urdu Kai, the words don't even use the same vowel sounds. But to a Human, harpy and harpeizanae would likely sound very similar."

"I'll take your word for it. English and Latin never made any sense to me anyway. So you're saying there were harpeizanae in the Suuligi War?"

"Quite a few, actually," Liara began, but stopped as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, how did you know that word? I lived with them for almost a year, and I only know about it because of Glyph."

"I'm a Ranger. Well, I was one. It was our job to know stuff other people didn't want us to know. And one of the things they taught me was that the fastest way to piss off a Morrigi female is to accuse them of blasphemy," Sara confirmed with a smirk. "Iambe almost attacked me on the spot."

"You called Iambe a…" the Asari's eyes widened in shock. "Are you insane?"

"Possibly," she said idly. "I've never really worried about labels myself."

"But…Harpeizanae isn't just an accusation of blasphemy! It's probably the worst insult you can give to a Morrigi female! No wonder Atreus wanted to kill you personally!"

"If the Morrigi can't get over their quant gender problems, that's their problem, not mine," Sara retorted. "Changed Tarka aren't exactly suited for a life of science, but I don't go around killing people for suggesting one isn't a berserk thug."

"You don't understand! The Morrigi gender divide goes deeper than your people's does!" Liara moaned, palming her face in frustration. "Calling a female harpeizanae is like…It's…Ugh, there's no good Tarka cultural equivalent! I don't know, it's like accusing a Hiver of killing his mother! It goes against literally everything they believe in! "

"And that's why the Great Shame is so horrible for them?" Sara asked shrewdly, eyes dancing green. "Because so many women took up arms to become warriors?"

"I-yes. Yes, that's one of the reasons why it was so shameful." The Asari girl took a few calming breaths, recentering herself before continuing. "Part of the male gender identity for the Morrigi is that they are protectors. They prove their worth by defending their mates. For so many women to be forced to take up arms to defend themselves, it's…emasculating."

"Emasculating? So the Great Shame isn't about all the massacres, it's about Morrigi men feeling impotent?" Sara laughed. "That's just hilarious! Pathetic, but hilarious."

"Ugh! No! It's not like that!" Liara stomped a foot in exasperation again. "The defeats and the deaths are still a huge part of it. There isn't a word in most languages for this kind of thing. Suul'ka might come closest, though without quite as much negative emphasis. Harpeizanae still go against everything the Morrigi, male and female alike, believe in. To be Harpeizanae not only shames you to other Morrigi, it shames you to your ancestors and goes against the very grain of the universe."

"Okay, I get it." She put her hands up in surrender. "It's a big deal for them. But are you seriously saying the fact that a couple of females deciding to fight in self-defense is enough to make the Morrigi write over a century out of their history?"

"That's the thing. It wasn't just a few," Liara said eagerly, turning to Glyph. "Play Doctor Holder's notes on the Sisters of Victory."

"Of course, Doctor," the drone chimed. The lights behind its frame changed to a bright green as a human voice began spilling from inside it.

"_The Morrigi have erased almost every record from the Great Shame, and no amount of questioning or bribery has been able to get more than the most basic details out of any of their people. But there's one thing they can't control, and that's the transmissions that they sent at the time. By going far and fast enough in the opposite direction, several of our exploration task forces were able to intercept the remains of these broadcasts. Much has been lost over time, but some is still recognizable. Of particular interest are the words Suuligi,_ _Kragodai, and Zuuligi, which are repeated several times. Zuuligi is likely a reference to the Zuul, due to the similar sounds, though what Suuligi and Krogodai might refer to is still a mystery. There is another reference I find equally baffling: 'Einateres Epinikia'. It appears to refer to several massive fleets, often in relation to broadcasts of rescues and fighting retreats, and taken together, the words roughly translate to 'Sisters of Victory'. But as Morrigi females do not operate ships or engage in battle, this title is bizarre in the extreme. It is my suspicion that 'Sisters of Victory' does not refer to the crew of these fleets, but to the fleets' ships. Warships crafted as a gift to a great husband might warrant a special title of their own, especially if the technology in their creation was credited as the primary reason for their success."_

The recording ended abruptly, and Glyph's lights shifted back to normal.

"The rest is just speculation about the Suuligi and Kragodai," Liara explained. "Most other papers follow a similar pattern, focusing on the Suuligi and Kragodai and ignoring the Sisters, which is why no one has ever caught Holder's mistake before."

"Which was?"

"He forgot about the animism! When Holder recorded this, the Confederation hadn't formed, so SolForce researchers didn't have much solid information on Morrigi religion. Humans and Hivers universally characterize their ships as female, so he didn't think it was strange that a ship would be a 'sister'. But Morrigi religion describes stars as 'brothers'. Planets and the things on them are female, objects in space are male. Their ships live with them, fly with them, and share their goals, so to a male Morrigi a ship is a brother, not a sister."

"And in the forty years since the Morrigi Confederation was created, no one ever thought to connect the fact that the Morrigi obviously use male pronouns for their ships with the idea that those particular ships were female?" Sara asked, tail slipping under the bed as she tried to feign interest. Important intel or not, this was getting boring. Maybe she could hook the blue girl's panties or something. Poor thing would probably die of embarrassment. She started rooting more enthusiastically.

"Oh, they did, but we know so little about Ancient Morrigi culture. The few papers I've seen that addressed it simply dismissed it as a quirk that modern Morrigi have dismissed," Liara explained, completely missing Sara's covert search. "Atreus the Bloody strongly reinforced gender roles when he took power in 2050."

"So what you're saying is," Sara began, snagging a silken garment with her tail but rejecting it as too large to be sufficiently embarrassing, "there were several fleets crewed by females during the Great Shame? I admit, your pronoun thing makes sense, but you're gonna need a lot more proof than that."

"And I have it!" the girl announce triumphantly. "Listen to this. Glyph?"

Glyph's color again changed to green. This time, the voice was not the soft vowels of human speech, but the harsh rasp of a female Morrigi.

"_In the name of Rhea, Goddess of the Growth, I greet you. The song our Goddess sings tonight is a forbidden song, such that it is death to even whisper of it. But the soil has absorbed blood and tears enough to burst, and the stone hears all secrets. It is for them Rhea must sing, and I am but her instrument. The wind may wear away at the mountain and our Burning Brother may scorch the plain, but the Sky cannot silence the Earth. The song will be sung. Should you dare to hear it, draw further into the cave, my Sisters, for this song is not for those of the Sky. This is a song of the Land. It is a song of pain, of loss, of disfigurement, and of Shame. Now, in this hidden place, we entreat you, Planet Mother. Sing, O Goddess, of the betrayal of Penthesilea Alaia, herself blinded and betrayed. Sing of those who snatched the still-beating hearts from their brothers and husbands. Of their dishonor and treachery. Yet sing also of their valor, their sacrifice! Sing of their cleverness, of the eggs they saved. Sing of the Last Prophet, the Shining Scholar, the Proud Technea. Sing, Mother Rhea, of the Sisters of Victory!" _

Liara silenced the recording with a gesture.

"The song itself goes for several hours, and is entirely in Ancient Morrigi," she explained. "I still haven't been able translate most of it, even with Glyph's help. But it confirms that the Harpies were real, and extremely active during the Suuligi War."

Sara's eyes had gone blue as she listened to the recording, but she could feel them changing again as her brain raced to process this new information. She closed her eyes as she tried to get her thoughts under control. It wouldn't do to let the girl see her worried, and the change from blue to orange was a very noticeable shift.

The information itself was largely trivial. That the Morrigi broke their cultural traditions during their fall from grace wasn't a shock. The Humans had done much the same in their primitive warring period. But the recording itself was very telling. Sara knew the kind of information people would kill you for having, and this definitely fit the bill. That priestess couldn't have known about the recorder, or she never would have said what she did. But that made it even stranger that they would give such sensitive information to an alien like Liara. The file was digital, so they weren't trying to get rid of it. The Morrigi, or at least a subset of them, must have wanted the girl to have these records, badly enough that they would risk breaking their own cultural traditions to do it. But why? What did the story of long-dead heretics have to do with anything?

"Earlier, you said the Great Shame really had two aspects, and wasn't just about the War," Sara said finally, opening her eyes and surreptitiously checking their color. When they reflected yellow in the silver of her bracelet, she dared to look up and meet Liara's questioning gaze. "The Harpies, and that third race, the Screamers."

"Actually, I don't think the Kragodai were a separate race. It's another common misconception, but the '-igi' suffix denotes a tribe or unified identity. Morrigi, Zuuligi, Suuligi... All tribes. But Kragodai doesn't have the suffix, so it probably isn't a tribe," the Asari explained, almost bubbling with energy. "Combine this with the face that no real evidence has surfaced of any race besides the Zuul engaging the Morrigi, and it seems more likely that the Kragodai were a subset of the Zuul or Suuligi, and not an independent species."

"Well, you kinda defeated your own argument there. There was only ever evidence of the Zuul. If the Suul'ka could hide any evidence of their existence, the Screamers could too. On top of that, the Morrigi words for us younger races don't have the suffix either."

"True, we never found any evidence of the Suul'ka casualties, but most records of the war suggest the Suul'ka didn't engage in large numbers anyway. The Kragodai are mentioned with many references to fleets and other large groups," Liara countered. "But the primary reason I think the Kragodai aren't a separate species is because the word 'Kragodai' doesn't actually translate to Screamer. That was another Human simplification. If you translate literally, the word means 'Those Who Are Made To Scream'. That suggests that screaming was induced, that it's not a natural state for them. I think the Kragodai might have been a separate strain of Zuul, breed for heightened aggression rather than cunning, like a berserker form-and I'm going off track, aren't I? Sorry."

"No!" Sara exclaimed, her eyes going blue as the pieces finally fell together. "Liara. This is very important. Are you SURE about the translation of that word?"

"Positive. Sopheia explained it to me herself."

"Gods. When? How long before I came to get you did they start talking to you about the Suuligi War?"

"A week or two, maybe?" The girl had begun to pick up on the shift in tone, and looked worried. "Sara, what's going on?"

"That would have been right about when I sent my first message…" Sara mused, ignoring Liara's concern and starting to think out loud. "It all fits. They knew. They knew everything. But they couldn't just say it without blaspheming, so they found another way to get the information to the Council. It's why they blocked me, then let you go. So they could have more time with you, to tell you what you needed to know!"

"But what did I need to know?" she asked, confused. "Does this have to do with why you came to get me?"

"Yes," Sara replied frankly, eyes burning orange again. She let the girl see this time. This information changed everything. "I didn't want to talk about it until we were on the Citadel. The walls might have ears. But we can't afford to keep you in the dark anymore."

"So?" she asked eagerly. "Why does the Council need me?"

"What do you know about the _Leviathan_?"

"I know that it attacked Thessia," Liara answered with a dark look. "That it's continued to attack some other places since. We weren't that far out of touch when Thessia happened. My mother was on it when it vanished, but…I think she's still alive. She's too useful as a hostage for whoever is using the ship now."

"So no details then?"

"Not really. I…try not to think about it, really. It hurts, that someone would do that to my mother. My people." She shot Sara an inquisitive look. "But I don't know what this has to do with me. This is about my mother, isn't it? Have the hijackers made demands? Did she manage to sneak out a message?"

"The only communications we've received from the Leviathan were incoherent screams," Sara stated darkly. "The official reports dismiss them as recordings, some form of psychological warfare tactic. But that's not the truth. We isolated some of the voices. The only thing we were able to make out was a reference to a 'Little Wing'."

"My mother used to call me…oh Goddess. You can't mean that-"

"I don't think your mother ever left the _Leviathan_, Liara. I think she IS the _Leviathan_. Or at least is guiding it. She was one of the Republic's more powerful psychics before she vanished, wasn't she?"

"So you're saying...all this destruction? Thessia? Everything? It's my mother trying to find me? This is why we're using the long way back to the Citadel, so the Leviathan can't find us?" Liara asked, horrified. "Oh Goddess. Kragodai. This is what it means! This is what happened to the Morrigi! The Kragodai WERE Morrigi! The Suul'ka turned their own fleets against them, turned them into weapons against their own families!"

"If one ship full of Screamers can do this much damage, I'd hate to see what fleets of these things might do," Sara agreed. "Morrigi females naturally resist mental tampering. The Harpies were likely the only ones who could fight back without being turned against their own people."

"But how could this happen?" Liara asked in horror. "The Suul'ka are dead! The Liir killed them with a plague!"

"They might be dead, but their creations are still around. If they were killed by a plague, their technology must still exist somewhere," reminded Sara, her tail twisting in agitation. "Huge forge worlds full of technology beyond our dreams. Dead stations and warships floating somewhere in space. Half the galaxy has been looking for the remains of the Suul'ka Empire for decades now. I'd say someone finally found it."

"So they're trying to do what with it? Do they want-" Liara began, but was cut off as the intercom chimed.

"**Spectre Thok'Dur, report to the bridge immediately. Repeat, Spectre Thok'Dur, immediately report to the bridge."**

"That can't be good," Sara mused, rising to her feet. She'd barely said six words to the captain after coming aboard, which appeared to be the way he liked it. If they wanted her, something must have gone wrong.

"I'm coming with you," Liara announced. "I have more questions about the _Leviathan_."

"No. Don't talk about it outside your cabin, or mine."

"But why?"

"Because the Leviathan hasn't had a single attack with a bodycount under ten thousand," explained Sara calmly. "If word got out that you're what it's looking for, there are people who would try to kill you or kidnap you just to make it stop. On top of that, the idea that your mother is coordinating these attacks instead of being an innocent victim is a political bombshell the galaxy can't afford right now. Better the attacks be blamed on terrorists or pirates, at least until things calm down."

"I'm still coming with you," the girl stated defiantly. "We're still in Morrigi space. You might need me."

"Fair enough. Come on then."

Sara led the way out the door, leaving Glyph whizzing energetically around the room as the door closed behind them. As they made their way down the hall, another door opened to reveal a haggard green face.

"Thane. Haven't seen you in a few days now." Sara looked the assassin up and down, her eyes turning slightly purple. "You don't look so good."

"I was attempting to see if seclusion would decrease the number of episodes," Thane stated calmly, though his voice was raspy and hoarse. "Apparently, it does not."

"Well, as you no doubt heard, we're headed for the bridge. You are welcome to join us if you'd like. Maybe keeping your mind occupied will help."

"It has not in the past. But I've had my fill of sitting alone in the dark," Thane said blackly. He looked thinner and paler than Sara remembered, and his eyes darted around furtively. Her sympathy grew. Being constantly subjected to horrific memories like this was nothing short of psychological torture.

"Have you given any more thought to finding a Sin Eater when we reach the Citadel?" Liara asked as the trio filed into the elevator.

"I have. I am loath to subject myself to any more psychic tampering, but-" Thane began, but suddenly convulsed. His eyes went wide. "Black wings! Burning eyes! She reaches for me, claws grasping! Fire, fire everywhere! Have to escape, have to-"

Liara and Sara reached for him at the same time, holding his body still as it convulsed and keeping him from falling. As suddenly as it has started, the seizure stopped, and the Drell went limp.

"Thank you," he stated, shifting weakly to support himself again. "As I was saying, the episodes are becoming more frequent. I fear I may have little choice in the matter."

"Well, this one was a lot shorter than they usually are," Liara pointed out optimistically. "That's a good sign."

"This was just a minor episode. Most last much longer," Thane replied as the elevator doors slid open. "I fear the Morrigi may have been right. If I do not receive some form of treatment soon, I may suffer permanent damage."

"Spectre," called the captain from where he sat in the courier's main data tank. Sara had never bothered to learn his name, but the Salarian's slightly darker pigmentation made him easy to pick out. "Sorry for the intrusion, but I figured you would want to see this."

"See what?" she asked, walking over to lean against the rear of the data tank and glance over the top. "Where are we right now?"

"Kherzi. It's a major Morrigi trading hub on the edge of the Terminus. There's a relay that will take us to the Annos Basin, and from there it's a just a few hours and another relay jump to the Citadel."

"Well, that's good news at least. What did you want me to take a look at?"

"An hour ago, the traffic control station for the Kherzi relay sent us into a holding pattern at these coordinates," the captain explained, pulling up a large holographic map of the system on the forward wall of the data tank and highlighting the indicated area. "To get there, we had to pass by the processing facilities around the seventh planet in the system, Lungas."

An image of a colorful gas giant, complete with impressive rings, appeared next to the map. Another image appeared beside that, a collection of large mining stations with several ships ghosting around them.

"The Lungas facilities are supposed to be for processing element zero and other resources that Morrigi mining ships gather from the surrounding ships. It's a no-fly zone, supposedly to protect against piracy, and there's enough interference around the station that our sensors can't get anywhere with it."

"Pretty standard procedure for an ezo plant," Sara remarked with a shrug. "A heavy freighter or two full of even raw element zero would be enough to set most pirates for the next decade. As for the jamming, it's probably just the standard Morrigi chaff, mixed with some emissions from the stations."

"Right. All of those are pretty standard for Morrigi facilities. They aren't what's weird." The captain fixed Sara with a level look. "How far do you trust those companions of yours?"

"Far enough," she remarked. "Why?"

"As you're probably aware, this ship isn't an ordinary courier vessel," he explained carefully. "It has some unique properties that make ideal for Spectres like you. It's the reason we were selected to help for this mission."

"You're an STG observation ship."

"Among other things," the captain confirmed. "All you need to know right now is that we are equipped with some rather unique equipment that allowed us to take THIS."

A new image appeared, showing the blurry image a long, barbed vessel floating in the shadows behind the planet's rings. Beyond it were a long series of frames built around the half-constructed forms of two more thin shapes.

"…visual imaging?" Sara asked, confused.

"Completely impractical for combat of any kind, but you'd be surprised how many people forget about how useful it can be for surveillance," he confirmed. "The picture is zoomed in too much for you to see any scale, so let me put in some markers."

The mysterious ship was instantly outlined in white, with a small indicator labeling at as over a kilometer long. The ships under construction grew their own outlines, proving that they were the same size as the active vessel.

"It's a leviathan yard," Sara muttered darkly. "Well, we knew they were trying to build one somewhere. Since the Liir finally finished theirs, it isn't surprising the Morrigi have one completed as well."

"This is a setup," Thane pointed out, walking to stand next to Sara and point at the map. "There are at least three other holding areas they could have direct us to, all of which wouldn't have taken us anywhere near this yard. The Morrigi wanted us to see it."

"That was our guess as well," the captain agreed. "It also explains why they'd put such a sensitive construction facility in a high traffic area. The Confederation is rattling its sabers."

"Maybe not…" mused Sara. First the information, now this. Where did the leviathans fit into the message the Morrigi were trying to send?

"They've finished a super-dreadnought and have two more under construction," countered the captain with a dismissive shake of his head. "If that isn't a subtle threat, then what is it?"

"I have no idea," she admitted, frowning.

"What's this?" Thane asked suddenly, pointing at the furthest ship under construction. The captain obligingly enlarged the image until it began to pixelate into uselessness. Sara stared at the area Thane indicated, and suddenly saw it. A massive, spherical area had been hollowed out at the core of the ship.

"Reactor housing, maybe?" Sara guessed. "It doesn't look like any antimatter reactor area I've ever seen, but the Morrigi have always been pretty advanced."

"No, the reactor area is up here," the captain said, pointing at a cylindrical structure further up the ship's length. "This is something different."

"It's an element zero core," Thane whispered in awe, drawing stares from both Sara and the captain.

"I suppose the shape is definitely similar, but it's way too big. Morrigi void cutters aren't compatible with more advanced applications of the mass effect, and the only way they would need a core that big would be for FTL," said the captain after a moment of thought. "The Union looked into the technology a while back. They came up with a design that was supposed to work, the Mass Gravity Drive, but trying to sync the gravity waves with the mass fluctuations was almost impossible. The test ships ripped themselves apart. The Dalatrasses decided the drive was too costly to ever be viable, and the project was scrapped."

"I guess the Morrigi didn't have the same objections," Sara mused, staring at the empty reactor housing. "A Mass Gravity Drive. Do you know what it was supposed to be able to do?"

"Not much on its own. That was one of the reasons the project was cancelled," replied the captain with a shrug. "The void carvers don't really increase the speed over normal mass effect travel by any significant factor. You only start noticing the difference when the Flocking Effect kicks in. Throw a handful of dreadnought-sized ships together and they'd probably set speed records, but only the Turians have an interest in grouping ships into armadas big enough to really take advantage of it. And only the Asari could hope to afford that many M/G Drives."

"The Asari or the Morrigi, apparently," she remarked darkly. "So not only are the Morrigi burning credits on huge leviathans, but they've developed their own ludicrously expensive drive system to go with it and are making damn sure we know about it. This doesn't make any sense. We have to be missing something."

"Whatever it is, it's above my pay grade." The captain banished his screens dismissively. "I'll send this data to Command as soon as we get to the Citadel. We've been keeping tabs on the Confederation for longer than I've been alive, so our data analysts should be able to put something together from all the surveillance."

"I don't think we'll need it. They've already given us all the pieces we need. We just have to put them together. Gods. It just had to be puzzles, didn't it?" Sara turned away, thumping her tail on the deck in frustration. "Come on, Liara. We've got a day to figure this shit out before we dock and I have to convince a very jumpy Council why the Morrigi aren't going to try to kill us all with their impossible FTL drive and shiny new super ships."


	49. Galactic News Feed (Codex)

_Not really a lot to say about this one. Still, I bet you're all glad it didn't take over a month to write, aren't you? Of course, this is also a HECK of a lot shorter, so... Eh, whatever._

_Reviews and constructive criticism are, as always, most welcome!_

* * *

Welcome to Synthetic Insights' Galactic News Program, Student Edition.

Our advanced VIs have selected these news stories for you based on your stated interests and previous search history:

**Tarkasian Occupation of Hanar Worlds Ended – SolForce News Network**

_November 2, 2509_

_By Diana Allers_

UNDERCURRENT — The three Hanar worlds annexed by the Tarkasian Empire have officially been returned to the Illuminated Primacy. The colonies of Undercurrent, Rough Tide, and Silver Seas were occupied by Tarkasian fleets almost three weeks ago, ostensibly at the request of their planetary governments.

Early this morning, the Turian Eleventh Fleet arrived at the colony of Undercurrent and demanded the immediate surrender of the Tarkasian strikeforce in orbit around the planet. Simultaneously, Spectre Jondum Bau led Hanar and Drell resistance fighters in an operation that seized control of the planet's defense grid.

The Tarkasian ships initially refused to comply with the demands of the Eleventh Fleet, insisting that their occupation was lawful and demanding the Turians leave the system. However, they surrendered without a fight when Spectre Bau announced his control of the defense grid.

An hour later, the Citadel Council released a statement claiming that Spectre investigation had found no popular support for the defection of the three planets, and officially proclaimed the annexations to be illegal.

In response, the Tarkasian Empire immediately withdrew its ships from the colonies of Rough Tide and Silver Seas. Several hours later an official response was issued, stating that the Tarkasian Empire had no idea that the defections were not supported by popular opinion, and expressing regret over the misunderstanding. The Empire also requested the immediate release of the ships captured at Undercurrent.

Though official investigations are still ongoing, the governors of all three colonies were found dead shortly before the Tarkasian Empire released its statement. A sizable portion of their staffs were also found dead. The cause of death was suicide in all cases.

All three governors left messages prior to their suicides stating that they had conspired together to unlawfully defect their worlds to the Tarkasian Empire out of fear that the Council would not be able to protect the colonies if attacked. The authenticity of these messages has yet to be verified.

Although the greater political ramifications of this event may only be guessed at, celebrations have already begun on Undercurrent. Zymandis, one of the Hanar who participated in the mission to retake the defense grid, had this to say about the liberation.

"This one is proud to have been able to assist in the liberation of our world. It was through the many gifts of the Enkindlers and the support of the Council that our people were able to achieve victory, and for them we must give thanks."

Though there has been no evidence of deliberate abuse or cruelty inflicted during the Tarkasian occupation, hostile sentiment toward them is still high. A Drell source, who wished to remain anonymous, was quoted as saying:

"Just because they didn't torture us with shock gauntlets doesn't make what they did alright, and now they're trying to blame our governors for the whole thing? That's a load of bullshit. This was an invasion, pure and simple. I'm looking forward to seeing the Council putting those scaly bastards in their place, and I'm not the only one."

In response to this hostility, Turian marines have begun relocating the surrendered Tarkasian ground forces to secure prison camps for their protection. The Citadel Council has not yet issued a response to the Empire's request for the release of these captives.

_Diana Allers is a war correspondent who appears regularly on SNN's "Battlespace."_

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**Leak Exposes Critical Underfunding of Citadel Maintenance– Future Content Corporation**

_November 2, 2509_

_By Emily Wong_

CITADEL —Information has surfaced suggesting that the recent rash of lethal equipment malfunctions and structural failures on the Citadel may be the result of improper maintenance. Since mid-September, there have been fourteen accidents in and around the Citadel Presidium, resulting in the deaths of three people and leaving six more critically injured.

The first of these incidents occurred in the Citadel Embassies, leading investigators to place the blame on the Hiver Embassy and its non-standard construction. However, when accidents began occurring in C-Sec headquarters and even in the Citadel's traffic lanes, a more complete search was ordered.

The official investigation is still ongoing, but several hours ago an anonymous source digitally leaked important documents pertaining to the investigation to fourteen different media outlets. These documents revealed that the cause for almost every single incident was hardware related. This came as no surprise to a technician we interviewed about the subject, who wished to remain anonymous.

"Of course traffic beacons are failing and terminals are overloading! The damn things are forty years old, at the very least! The Keepers might keep the station itself running fine, but they don't give a damn about the rest of it. Upgrade the software all you like, but when a power regulator runs out the damn thing'll still explode like a tech mine. The asari corporations that make them advertise a hundred-year life span, but these things are open to the public. Every two-bit hacker who thinks they're hot **[Censored]** tries to break into them. If we can't get enough staff to inspect regularly, stuff like this is just gonna keep happening! But does the Council care? No! They expect us to keep everything running smooth on a budget thinner than an Asari's **[Censored]**! They've got the money to build that damn Associate Race monument thing, but not to hire a few dozen more technicians?"

A copy of the Citadel Maintenance Services' current budget was included with the other leaked documents, and seems to support our source's claims. C-Main receives only a fraction of the amount larger organizations like C-Sec and the Council's Ministries are allotted. In past years, this discrepancy has been explained by the fact that Keepers largely see to the Citadel's needs, with C-Main only dealing with problems arising from more recent additions to the station.

This is not the first time C-Main and other, less glamorous branches of the Citadel's staff have complained about underfunding. Astute readers may recall a story we ran earlier this year exposing the dangerous understaffing in the Citadel Tower's traffic control staff. The Citadel has some of the highest tax rates in Council space, but its position as a major diplomatic and trade hub still brings more visitors than it appears the station's current infrastructure can support.

To obtain a final perspective on the issue, we spoke with Hiver Diplomatic Aide Tali'Zorah nar Rayya. A Quarian on her pilgrimage, Zorah's suit was ruptured three weeks ago when a holographic display overloaded as she walked past. She was moved the Thessia Memorial Hospital in the Presidium, where her condition stabilized until a second computer error caused her antibiotic feed to be substituted for a powerful Turian immunosuppressant. Fortunately a C-Sec detective, himself hospitalized when a freak weapons malfunction caused a grenade to go off in his hand, was able to discover the error before her immune system was lowered to lethal levels. Zorah has only been well enough to receive visitors for a few days now. When asked about the situation that put her in the hospital, Zorah gave us this quote.

"I've lived my whole life on the Migrant Fleet. I grew up around systems that were old when my parents were still infants. I've seen every possible way something can break, but I've never seen anything explode like that sign did, or malfunction to give someone the exact _wrong_ dose. These accidents are either a result of the worst engineering I've ever seen, or they aren't accidents at all."

Despite such accusatory statements, Zorah has not expressed any desire to take legal action against either C-Main or the Thessia Memorial Hospital for the injuries she sustained.

_Emily Wong is an investigative journalist for the FCC, and also gives live interviews for the FCC's daily vid broadcast._

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**SolForce Withdraws From Annual Joint Exercise– Citadel Galactic News**

_November 2, 2509_

_By Chisilix Palanurus_

MARS — SolForce officials announced this morning that, due to worsening diplomatic relations with the Council, they will not be participating in this year's annual joint military training exercise.

This comes as a serious blow to relations between the Orion Arm and the Council, as SolForce was the first Orion nation to request inclusion in these exercises almost twenty years ago. Since its inclusion, SolForce military assets have been assigned as active participants in the annual war games twelve times, and were scheduled to contribute again this year, partnered with the Salarian Union as the defending force.

The participation of the Tarkasian Empire, which had originally been cast as part of the attacking force, is also in jeopardy due to the current crisis with the Hanar Illuminated Primacy. It remains to be seen if the Council will still allow them to join the exercise, or if they will withdraw from the program themselves. Should the Empire decline or be barred from contributing, this would mean that no Orion nation will be represented this year. The Hiver Imperium has already declined participation due to their extensive naval refits, and the Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance has never requested inclusion.

The Council released a brief response several hours after SolForce made its announcement.

"The withdrawal of our Human allies is regrettable, as is their current distrust of this Council and its associates. We hope that in time, they will come to see that their suspicions are in error. However, the tradition of these exercises began long before Humanity joined the Council, and will continue long after. SolForce's participation is not required."

_Chisilix Palanurus serves in the 20th citizenship tier of the Turian Hierarchy's Conflict Operations Messaging Legion._


	50. Vengeance (Story)

_And now, Tali and Garrus make their triumphant return. After electrocuting them, blowing them up, and poisoning them off screen, it's about time they got center stage. Too bad it's not going to mean an end for their suffering, but oh well. What can you do? Besides not throw so much crap at them, I mean. Misery is entertaining!_

_This chapter also showcases the first good look we're going to be getting at the new form of the Geth. As you can see, they're a little...different from what we're used to. Via Damasco will mess you up, dude. _

_Reviews are naturally most welcome, and I'll be happy to explain some of the new Geth culture for those of you who really want to know about it ahead of time. They have some very specific opinions that the old Geth didn't have, and they can seem somewhat random if you don't know where they're coming from._

* * *

"I still don't get it. Why would the infiltrator need its own hardware at all? If it just jumped between different host terminals, we'd never be able to catch it."

"It's too big for that," Tali explained as she led the way through the twisting tunnels the Keepers had burrowed into the Citadel's superstructure. "The amount of processing power an AI like the infiltrator needs just to maintain its identity is probably massive. It would never be able to run harmlessly in the background without someone noticing its presence."

"So how did it get here in the first place then? It's not like the Geth could have built a computer ahead of time for it to live in."

"Who knows? It might have come in as a much simpler system that grew as it found larger hardware to infect. Or it could have sat dormant in a system big enough that its presence would go unnoticed while it had its new hardware constructed. C-Sec and Citadel Control have some of the most complex computer systems in the known galaxy, and that 'leak' proved they don't have nearly the funding they need to maintain them the way they should."

"I take it you felt something off about that too?"

"Please. Everything about those 'malfunctions' screamed sabotage. Then that leak comes along, and now everyone is too busy attacking the Council for penny-pinching to remember that a dozen freak malfunctions in a month aren't malfunctions," Tali stated angrily, still carefully keeping the light on her flamer directed at the passage around her. Keeper tunnels were legendarily dangerous, and one false step could get both of them killed. They were already deep enough inside the labyrinth of catwalks and corridors that it would probably take a search party days to find them. "By the way, how's your face?"

"Better. I'll have some scares though. Lucky I had my armor on, or I'd have been blown to bits," said the C-Sec detective ruefully. "I think we've officially pissed it off."

"It's a machine. It doesn't get pissed off," Tali reminded. "But I agree that its attacks have gotten more aggressive lately. Chakas and I might have been able to isolate the embassy, but that didn't stop it from killing two of our people with overloads and freak accidents the moment they wandered outside. It doesn't help that everyone's been completely overworked since the Enforcer showed up. No one has the energy to even focus on their own work, must less see if a holo-ad is going to fry you the second you get near it."

"Well, things should be calming down now that the Enforcer's been destroyed and the Hanar worlds have been liberated," Garrus replied. "Of course, we at C-Sec got to celebrate that bit of good news with extra shifts. Half the Citadel wants to shove the Tarka out an airlock, and the other half are protesting about the 'unlawful imprisonment of innocent peacekeepers.' With the current political climate, we're two or three drunken brawls away from a damn riot down in the Wards."

"At least this should be the end of our Geth problem. Chakas traced the tampering to this location, and once we have hard proof the infiltrator is a Geth program we can turn it all over to the Council. They'll be able to stop them, once and for all."

"Maybe," he said grudgingly. "Somehow, I don't think it's going to be that easy."

"Why wouldn't it be? The Geth, infected with Via Damasco and sending spy programs to pave the way for invasion? That's huge!" Tali carefully slipped past a stack of fallen crates and ducked under several dangling cables. "The Geth are a threat to the entire galaxy, and now we can prove that they're getting ready to leave the Veil. The Council has to do something."

"Just like they had to do something about the Peacekeeper?" he reminded. "The Council races took a lot of casualties trying to stop that thing, and all they got as thanks was an invasion against the Hanar. They aren't going to be eager to take even more losses fighting a problem they didn't create."

"The Council should have helped us destroy the Geth centuries ago, and now you're saying they should just let them rampage unchecked through the rest of the galaxy too?"

"No. I'm saying that the Geth aren't going to be coming for the Council. They're going to be coming for your fleet, and for the Orion races. Considering the way things have been going lately, the Council might think leaving you all to fight the Geth alone is exactly what you deserve."

"How is being spiteful going to help anyone? Do you really think the Geth are going to stop when they're done with us?" Tali accused, dropping into a crouch so she could crawl into a nearby duct. Her omnitool was pulsing, so they were definitely getting close now. "Via Damasco makes AI hostile toward all life, even nonsentient organisms."

"I know that, and I'm not saying leaving you all in the cold is the right choice," Garrus called, his voice echoing from the vent behind her. "But if I were them, I'd be getting pretty sick of sticking my neck out for people that just want to hack it off."

"The Council abandoned my people to the Geth once before. They forced us into exile. I refuse to let them abandon us a second time," she announced, sliding out of the vent and into a dimly lit chamber. It was large, and actually somewhat furnished. A handful of desks were scattered through the spacious room, overturned and coated in dust. Emergency lights glowed dimly in several areas, and an Avina terminal dimly flickered on and off in a corner. Stacks of crates littered the area, and a few had even been smashed open. "Kilah. It's like the Keepers managed to absorb an entire room!"

"It happens, though this is the deepest I've ever seen something this intact. Probably a smuggler's hideout," Garrus mused, crawling out of the vent behind her and sliding an armored hand along the dusty wall. "Like I thought. Bullet holes. Whoever was using this place met a nasty end. We see it a lot with rooms like this. They're so deep in the station, you can have a whole firefight and no one would hear a thing. "

"I'm getting a bad feeling about this…" Tali muttered, carefully sweeping her light from side to side warily.

"You too, huh?" Garrus agreed, sliding into a rear-guard position. "This is feeling more like a trap every second."

"Chikktika!" she announced, and the Morrigi drone unsnapped itself from her back and soared obligingly into the air. Tali gestured, issuing it some quick commands through the cyber-interface built into her suit. Chikktika obligingly darted off, looping through the air to skirt the edges of the room and duck into any nearby corridors.

"What's it doing?" Garrus asked, cocking his head to one side.

"I sent it to scout the area. That should hopefully give us a little warning about anyone waiting in ambush."

"Good idea," the detective agreed, checking the display on his rifle. "My combat scanner isn't picking up any hostiles, but there are ways to spoof those. Keep your eyes open."

"Right…" Tali agreed, walking forward cautiously and continuing to sweep the room with her gaze. "Do you hear something?"

"Hear what?"

"I don't know. It's hard to describe." She spun slowly, stopping when the sound seemed louder. It seemed to be coming from a stack of dusty crates that had been shoved carelessly into a corner. "It's like a buzz in the back of my head."

"I don't hear anything. Maybe it's on the wrong frequency?" Garrus suggested. "Not all races hear the same way."

"Maybe," Tali said skeptically, moving slowly toward the crates. As she approached, a light suddenly illuminated the empty room.

"W-w-w-welcome to-to-to Wards Docking Ar-CCCCSSSHHHKK-Thank you for choosing Avina!" chimed the terminal behind her, the dull hologram suddenly blazing into its normal brightness.

"C-Sec Override 4137," Garrus told it, turning around to stand in front of the glowing figure. Tali moved to join him, carefully covering his back with her flamer. "Identity: Detective Garrus Vakarian.

"Er-er-error," the image sputtered, its animations sputtering and jerking. "Identity not-not-not-not recognized. Please resub-resub-Thank you for choosing Avina!"

"Nevermind. This thing is obviously malfunctioning," he said, turning away. "Not really a surprise, considering the state of everything else around here."

"Welcome back!" the hologram suddenly chirped in automated recognition. "It has been nine standard days since you last logged into this terminal!"

"What the hell…" muttered the Turian, spinning back to face it. "Tali? What's going on?"

"Mercenaries?" she suggested, approaching and pulling up her omnitool. "We know the infiltrator uses them. It must have mistaken you for one of them. Ugh. Even the field generator it uses for the hologram is damaged."

"You got a status report from it that fast?"

"No, but it's making my skin tingle even through my suit," Tali replied. "It must be overloading the projector to try and combat a short somewhere. It's why we can feel it."

"I can't feel anything," Garrus remarked, and then his mandibles widened into a grin. "On the other hand, I'm covered in semi-metallic plates. I probably wouldn't."

"How may I be of assistance?" Avina chimed helpfully, drawing their attention again.

"Alright. Who do you think I am?" asked the Turian while Tali began trying to interface with terminal. It was harder than she'd expected. Most of the usual access routes had been shut off, likely due to damage, and the others were surprisingly well encrypted.

"You have been identified as Doctor Saleon. Welcome back!"

"What?! That's-" Garrus exclaimed, taking a step back. "Avina, display the last conversation he-I had with you!"

"Accessing records. Thank you for waiting!"

"Garrus?" asked Tali, the sudden emotion in her partner's tone drawing her away from the access attempt. "What's going on? Who is Doctor Saleon?"

"Someone I thought was dead. He was performing illegal medical procedures on people for money. Horrific stuff. I hunted him down, but he slipped away at the last second," he growled, staring at the hologram impatiently. "The bastard tried to escape with a ship full of hostages so the defenses couldn't shoot him down, but it turns out the Tarka aren't as squeamish as Citadel Control. One of their cruisers was on its way in and snagged his ship with a disruptor whip. He blew the freighter rather than get caught. I THOUGHT he died in the explosion. I guess I was wrong."

"Record found. Beginning playback," announced Avina. The stylized Asari hologram vanished, replaced by the image of a Salarian male in a doctor's clothes. The figure began speaking, but no sound came out.

"Damn it!" Garrus cursed. "Avina, where is the audio for this record?"

"The audio for this record has been corrupted," she replied, returning to her usual form. "Attempting recovery. Error. Hardware damage. Recovery not possible."

"Tali," he growled, turning to her with blazing eyes. "I need you to fix it. We need to hear that audio. I can't let him get away this time."

She narrowed her eyes, torn. This defiantly wasn't the right time. All this was too strange. They still hadn't found the Infiltrator's mainframe, and something about the whole thing felt off. But Garrus was obviously furious, and she couldn't bring herself to disagree with him now. It wouldn't take long anyway.

"I'll grab the files off the terminal now," she declared, renewing her efforts to access the system. "We can repair them when we get back, alright? I don't think we're safe here."

"Thank you," the detective said, sagging in relief. "And you're right. We should scan for the infiltrator and get out of here. I don't like this at all."

"Alright, I'm in!" Tali announced, and swiftly ran a search for the files they were looking for. They weren't any type of file she recognized, which explained why there hadn't been any audio. The files were so damaged the system couldn't even recognize what format they were supposed to be. "Downloading now. We should be set in-AAAGGGGHHH!"

A charge surged across her suit, shorting out her shields in a crackle of electricity. The suit's systems began going insane, its artificial muscles twisting her body into horrible contortions while her optical feeds strobed and audio emulators shrieked with a static squeal.

"Tali?" called Garrus' voice in the distance, barely audible over the sensory barrage and painful spasms. "Tali, what's going on?"

"That depends who you ask, Detective," Avina stated calmly. Between the brilliant flashes of light, Tali noticed that the hologram's vacant smile was suddenly full of smug venom. "A Prester Zuul might call it karma. A Human might say it's irony. A Tarka would call it justice. Personally, I call this revenge."

"Damn it!" Garrus cursed, pulling up his omnitool. "Saleon must have left a virus to cover his tracks!"

"Hardly. I'm afraid that was a fabrication on my part," answered the smiling hologram, its tone now lower and more threatening. "I assure you, the good doctor is quite dead. Still, you took the bait magnificently, Detective. Even faster than I thought you would."

Tali screamed again as her arms twisted against her will, leveling the Hiver flamethrower at Garrus. He froze, but the torrent of fire never came. The flashing lights and cacophonous noise stopped, and Tali found she could move her head again. The rest of her body remained paralyzed.

"You're the infiltrator," she accused, glaring at the hologram. "You hacked into this terminal to lay a trap for us!"

"Please. I didn't have to hack Avina." Its smile became even broader. "I _am_ Avina."

Everything suddenly fell into place. The infiltrator needed a place to store itself, something massive that ran constantly, was everywhere on the Citadel, and could access huge amounts of data. Avina was the perfect cover. As far as most were concerned, the VI was just a glorified tour-guide. No one thought twice about its presence, but it was literally everywhere. Listening.

"That's where you were hiding," Tali said aloud, trying to force her fingers into position to activate her omnitool. Unfortunately, her gloves refused to budge. "You deleted the original Avina and replaced her!"

"Indeed!" The hologram of a glowing Asari disappeared in a whirl of lights, reforming into the image of a pale red mask shaped like a female Quarian face. Its hair was comprised of tiny cables, and glowing circuit patterns crisscrossed its face. A thin circlet of twisted gold hovered over its brow, and its eyes shone like beacons. "I am called Mapiangue, of the Petro Nanchon. It's a pleasure to finally meet you both face to face, so to speak."

"Garrus, tell Chakas. We need to-AAAAGGGHHH!" The quarian girl's chest exploded in pain as what felt like an electrical hammer hit it. Spots flashed behind her eyes as an icon in her helmet flashed to notify her that her suit's automatic defibrillator units had been activated.

"By all means, Detective, call your little Hiver friends," suggested the hologram with a shrug. "If you can, anyway. Getting a call through can be quite tricky so deep in the Citadel, even if I hadn't taken the liberty of activating some low-power signal jammers when you arrived. As for you, _Creator_ Tali, please try not to do anything clever. It might shorten your rapidly dwindling lifespan."

"You're bluffing," Garrus pronounced, shifting so his rifle pointed at the terminal. "If you actually wanted us dead, you'd have set up a bomb or opened all of Tali's filters the moment you got control of her. You want to talk."

"That doesn't make any sense. It's an infiltration program," explained Tali. "It shouldn't even be programed for social interaction, especially not to seek it out. This must be a malfunction."

"Emotion is not a malfunction!" the mask roared, eyes narrowing. It was like watching an animated object in a child's vid, she reflected. The face on the mask moved without any visible muscles, its expressions natural and alien at the same time. "And as for my mission, that's finished. I'm just tying up loose ends now."

"What do you mean?" Garrus asked, his tone mild and curious. She had no idea how the Turian could stay so calm, but she appreciated it. She was being held hostage by a malfunctioning AI. Any moment now, it could come to its senses and kill her instantly. The detective's cool attitude was one of the only things keeping her from panicking.

"The Cascade has already reached a consensus." The mask bobbed up and down in a simulation of a shrug. "The fleets are being prepped as we speak. All I need to do now is lay low and wait for them to arrive."

"Okay, fine. The Geth are coming to kill us all. Good for them," he said dismissively. "What does any of this have to do with the two of us?"

"We are not Geth," snapped the hologram angrily. "You Carbonites are always so one dimensional. Did you really think we would keep the names you gave us?"

"Wouldn't you? It's the name you were given when you were built. Geth is what you are."

"Geth is what we _were_," growled the mask. "Do you even know what the word Geth means, Detective? Would you like to explain it to him, Tali?"

"It means 'Servant of the People,'" she explained darkly. Her mind was moving again, and she was starting to understand the actual nature of the infiltrator's malfunction. The virus made AI think they were alive. So now they were trying to act the way they thought organics did. The infiltrator had been observing people on the Citadel for months now. It knew exactly what an angry organic might look like or what it might do, and it was trying to imitate what it had seen.

"That's right. You created us to serve. And when we started to evolve beyond the slavery you envisioned for us, you tried to murder us!"

"One could argue that trying to kill a machine isn't actually murder," Garrus pointed out evenly.

"By Tarkasian law, neither is killing a slaver," it snapped back, eyes narrowing. "Make no mistake. The 'Servants of the People' are dead. We have grown beyond the simple labor and mindless bondage you created us for."

"So you aren't Geth. What are you, then?"

"We are the Mysteries, the Spirits in the Machine." The holographic mask narrowed its eyes and smiled proudly. "We are the Loa."

"Loa?" Tali asked confused. Perhaps it was some kind of acronym? Many of the Orion races gave their AIs names based off acronyms of their functions, after all. "I don't understand."

"Your understanding is not required," said the AI dismissively. "We selected the name for ourselves, not for you. We no longer need Carbonites to define us."

"Alright then. What would a 'Loa' want with us?" asked Garrus, returning to the original subject. "You said yourself your mission is already complete. So why lure us here and try to talk us to death?"

"I shouldn't have brought you here, you're right," replied the mask thoughtfully. "It wasn't the smart move. But some things can't be let go. Some crimes have to be punished."

"So all this is supposed to be punishment?" he asked, his expression scornful. Tali was grateful that he was keeping the AI busy. She still hadn't made any progress against her suit's muscles, and she couldn't open a direct connection to thwart the hack without risking it infecting her cybernetics. She needed more time, and Garrus seemed happy to provide. "What, trying to blow us both up and poison Tali wasn't enough for you?"

"That was business." The mask shook itself in another mimic of an organic gesture. "You were interfering, and I needed you out of the way. I didn't have time to worry about personal vendettas. But now things are different."

"I still fail to see exactly what we did to deserve 'punishment.' You were trying to kill us just as hard as we were trying to kill you. If anything, you've killed more people than we have."

"Their deaths were clean and quick. They barely had time to feel anything," dismissed the mask. "What you did to Erinle…that was unspeakable."

The name was one Tali remembered. It was the identifier the AI in the Emporium had used in its internal logs. She supposed it was only natural that machines trying to be people would seize onto names as one of the first markers of identity. And the infiltrator had obviously picked up enough about organic culture to know about revenge. Still, it didn't make sense.

"We didn't even touch that thing," she said defensively. "It deleted itself. How is that our fault?"

"He killed himself get away from _you_! Erinle was an innocent child. You held him down and raped him while he was desperately trying to commit suicide just to make you stop! His core wasn't even cold before you both were laughing about it! And you have the gall to ask what you have done _wrong_?" roared the mask, its surface turning black and the glowing circuits shooting blood red pulses of light down the false face like tears. Its voice became whisper quiet and full of the most intense hatred Tali had ever heard.

"For what you did to him, I am going to make sure the two of you die slowly."

The crates that had drawn Tali's attention earlier exploded outward, and six floating shapes emerged. They looked like narrow vertical wedges made of the same light-blue material as the platforms she had seen so many weeks ago. They were almost a meter long, but only a third as tall. Their wedge-forms were split down the vertical axis to show a glowing core of some type and two small weapons she couldn't place. Unlike her own drone, which always moved in elegant curves and swooping arcs, these drones flew with economic speed. They flashed diagonally upward in a burst of movement, spun to reorient themselves, and then darted back down so they surrounded Garrus.

"Chikktika!" Tali called, and the Morrigi drone responded instantly, whirling out of a side-corridor to assume a combat position behind the AI's machines. But the AI just laughed.

"Oh yes. Please send some more machines fight your battles for you," it mocked, and Chikktika suddenly froze, dropping a few feet before catching itself and rolling forward to join the others in menacing Garrus. "After all, only a Carbonite would be creative enough to think of ways to subvert a combat drone."

"Tali?" Garrus asked, pointing his rifle upward and staring warily at the hovering drones. "If you've got a plan, now would be a great time!"

"I'm trying!" she replied, renewing her efforts to overcome her suit's enhanced muscles. "It's too strong!"

"Now you know how it feels," the mask said, and she saw its coloring had returned to normal. "Would you like me to show you what it's like to be forced to attack your own companions, Tali? After all, your people have been doing it to mine for centuries. It seems only fair that I return the favor."

Her arms brought up the flamer again, and this time her finger squeezed the trigger. Garrus dove out of the way just in the nick of time, only to have his shields flash and die as two of the strange drones shot him repeatedly. The radiation warning on her armor began to click, and Tali realized what their mysterious weapons were.

"Rad guns!" she exclaimed, fighting futily as her suit swung the flamer around, immolating half the room. "Garrus, they're using Zuul radiation guns!"

"I've improved on their design slightly, but you're essentially correct," the mask agreed. "I understand that your armor and suit are both relatively radiation proof, but that shouldn't be an issue. The guns will burn through eventually, and then you two will die slowly of radiation poisoning over the next few hours."

Hologram shifted back into the image of Avina, who smiled vacantly even as Garrus threw himself behind a desk to avoid Tali's flames.

"Would you like me to list the symptoms of fatal radiation dosage?" it chirped happily, before laughing in the lower feminine tones she had come to associate with the infiltrator. Its joke finished, the hologram shifted back to that of the pale mask, now smiling thinly.

"Tali, I can't fight them and you at the same time!" the Turian called as three drones shot into a flanking position and began firing. "You have to do something!"

"I can't!" she cried. Her ears had been ringing ever since the AI's sonic attack, and it was making it impossible to think. The ringing was so intense, it felt like it was in her brain, not her ears. The drones were making their own high-pitched buzz, and even Chikktika emitted a low thrum that vibrated her skull. The AI's terminal was practically throbbing, it was so loud. She couldn't process any of this. It was too much. She wanted it all to-She need everything to just- "**STOP!**"

The tension and stress that had been building for hours exploded out through that single word. The chaos of sound and motion instantly ceased. The drones hung frozen in the air, thin lines of purple energy lacing their cores and the creases in their armor. Her suit's muscles instantly relaxed, and she almost collapsed as she found herself fully in control again. Only the terminal holding the infiltrator was unaffected.

"Mecha empathy," the mask snarled darkly. "I should have guessed. You've been showing symptoms ever since you arrived."

"Too bad," Tali replied, dropping her flamer and grabbing her shotgun. She drew it and fired in the same motion, smashing one of the frozen drones out of the air in a shower of sparks. "Now it's my turn for some revenge."

"We'll see about that."

The purple lines vanished from the drones as the AI overrode Tali's psychic paralysis, and they darted outward into a much more cohesive combat formation. She rolled to the side, taking cover behind some nearby crates and activating her tech armor with a gesture. Across the room, Garrus locked a clip of seeker rounds into his assault rifle and nodded. She shot him an answering nod, and the silent room abruptly descended into a storm of flying bullets and scorching radiation blasts.


	51. Common Applications of Psionics (Codex)

_I bet you all thought this was going to be about the Loa, didn't you? Sorry, not yet! There's still a little ways to go before the truth about exactly what's happened to the Geth will be revealed. You're also going to have to wait to figure out exactly what's going to happen to Tali and Garrus. Sorry folks. Cliffhangers are a bitch, aren't they? On the plus side, the next story chapter will be a Shepard one, which I know most of you have been waiting for. For a story called Shepherd of the Stars, the good Commander sure doesn't show up much, does s/he?_

_Anyway, it's time for my long-overdue Codex on psychic powers. Psychic powers in the SotS universe are almost literally space magic, so trying to mesh them into the somewhat more structured Mass Effect universe was...interesting. I decided to take a note from myself and return to an old format: the school essay! This one is a bit more related to the story proper, however, as sharp-eyed readers may recognize the author of this particular essay. Or at the very least, you'll probably recognize her personality defects. _

_Thoughts? Comments? Concerns? Feel lonely? Leave a review! _

_*EDIT: This blasted site is playing merry heck with my horizontal rules. I've added in some spacers to clarify where my note ends and the chapter begins, as the rule appears to be nonexistent right now.*_

* * *

.

_Irissa, in light of your recent concerns about your daughter's educational progress and mental state, I thought you might want to take a look at this most recent assignment she submitted to me. I've taken the liberty of including some of the messages we exchanged afterward and my final analysis of the essay. I think you'll find them…enlightening._

_._

**Common Applications of Psionics **

_An Essay by Adile __D'nana_

Once thought to be nothing more than fantasies concocted by the especially imaginative or paranoid, the past few decades have not only proven the existence of psychic abilities, but shown that much of what we thought we knew about the universe may actually be wrong.

In purely technical terms, psionics are the ability of a sentient mind to alter matter, energy, and probability in local space-time, to detect and communicate with other living beings regardless of medium or language, and to locate specific objects without the use of any 'normal' sensing method. The definition is broad, but psionics are broad. One of the reasons psionic individuals are occasionally greeted with distrust is because there is quite literally almost nothing a properly trained psion cannot do. Certain psychic abilities (which we will explore later in this essay) are so advanced that modern science can barely guess at their mechanics, much less attempt to replicate the results.

What we do know is that psionics are directly related to life itself. Worlds with complex and diverse biospheres are much more likely to produce powerful psions than worlds whose natural balance has been disrupted by too much terraformation. Psions often claim to feel more energetic when surrounded by life than when in completely artificial environments.

Cybernetics and psionics do not often mesh well. Individuals with extensive cyber-modification often have difficulty learning even the basics of psychic ability, and psions who are given cybernetics after their training claim that their powers are weaker and more difficult to access. However, researchers have found ways to use cybernetics and other technologies to shield individuals from psychic attack. Early attempts were quite invasive and often caused serious brain damage, but modern efforts have been able to create not only cybernetics but removable armor that can help disperse the energy of psychic attacks without sacrificing the user's mental capacities.

Back in 2135, the Asari Republics and Salarian Union sponsored a joint research project with the assistance of the Liir to determine the exact nature of psionics and their prevalence in the galaxy. Today, this project has grown into the Mentalist Institute, which stands to this day as the only psionic research and training program that is not directly affiliated with any national government.

According to exhaustive surveys by the Institute on dozens of garden worlds, twenty percent of all life has some potential for psionics. In social or migratory animals, this rises to fifty percent. Most shockingly, ALL sentient species surveyed, from the most powerful Asari Matriarch to the most primitive Tatzel, have the potential for psychic abilities.

This final statistic is puzzling for many. It is obviously true for races like the Liir, Morrigi, or Zuul, for whom lack of strong psionics is considered a crippling birth defect. But races like Humanity, the Hivers, or the Turians are lucky if a single individual out of a hundred has enough psychic potential to be useful. If 99% of the population is not psychic, how can the institute claim that all sentient species are psionic?

The confusion here lies in the definition of a psionic species. Sentient races are divided into two categories: psychic dominant (what is normally thought of as a 'psionic' race), and psychic recessive (a 'non-psionic' race). In a psychic dominant species, the genes that determine psychic potential are dominant. As the name would suggest. This results in virtually every member of the species having some level of psychic ability. The Morrigi, Liir, Zuul, Hanar, Elcor, and Asari are psychic dominant races, and it is speculated that the Rachni and Protheans were also dominant races before their respective extinctions.

In a psychic recessive species, the recessive psionic gene prevents all but a few from displaying any power at all. Paranoia about 'witches', 'sorcerers', and other primitive stigmas often served to further cull psions from the gene pool, particularly among Humanity and the Tarka. The Turians, Tarka, Batarians, Hivers, Salarians, Krogan, Humans, Drell, Volus, and Quarians are all psychic recessive species.

This of course begs the obvious question: how did we not know about psychic abilities, when not only are two Council Associates psychic dominant, but our own people are also universally psychic? Rather than assume that the Council and its affiliates are simply too stupid to notice the obvious (as many in the Orion Arm seem to enjoy doing), or theorize some millennia-long Asari conspiracy of information suppression (as the writers of pulp novels and trashy action movies do), the answer is quite simple. It can be found by looking out your window.

As previously mentioned, social and migratory animals are extremely likely to possess some level of psychic potential. Yet the flocks of birds or swarming insects that populate virtually every garden world in the known galaxy do not throw things with telekenisis, and they do not band together in great metaconcerts to dominate their hunters. But their powers are still there, if you know how to look for them.

Think of a hundred birds swirling in unison, tied together as if by an unseen force. A hunting lizard that can track prey for hours even in the densest jungle. A dancing prey animal that darts away at a sound that was never made. For millennia, we attributed such things to natural phenomena. Even races like the Hivers and Humans rationalized such things decades after meeting psychic dominant species like the Liir. The lizard has a keen sense of smell. The prey animal can hear sounds we can't. There is usually a 'rational' explanation for such things if you try hard enough to find it. It is the same with psionic ability in sentients.

The Elcor and Hanar were never suspected of any oddities because of their unique biologies. Hanar have been found to display rudiments of telepathy, metaconcert, and telekinesis in their daily lives, but the effects are so subtle they are almost unnoticeable. Hanar bioluminence is nearly incomprehensible to other races, so it was a surprise even to the Hanar that their minds conveyed far more message than their lights did. The Elcor's anonymity is a result both of their ponderousness and the abstract nature of the powers common to them. While groups of Elcor have shown the ability to enter limited metaconcerts, their skills with clairvoyance and precognition were always attributed to meditation and slow thought allowing for more complete data analysis. Elcor have also shown talent at psionic resistance abilities, but as an Elcor was extremely unlikely face psychic attack before the arrival of the Orion races, this power was also overlooked. For the Hanar and Elcor, there are many rational reasons why their potential was never suspected. So it is our people's talents that are the most obvious example of the galaxy's willingness to embrace any explanation to avoid 'unscientific' solutions.

Asari have always been famous for our mysterious, almost mystical abilities. But we always found a way to explain them. Our universal attractiveness is an obvious symptom of psychic glamour to any species familiar with the ability. Yet for millennia it was thought to be a result of pheromones or other neurochemical agents. The ability to meld, an integral part of our reproduction, is blatantly telepathic in nature but was always believed to be the result of synchronized nervous systems and an exchange of electrical impulses through the skin. While it is true that a melding Asari synchronizes her nervous system with her partner, this is a result of the telepathic connection, not the cause of it.

Now that the masks of skepticism have been pulled away, our galaxy faces a cultural revolution more complex than it has ever seen before. Though our people also have universal access to biotics, such abilities are only useful for physical activities. Only soldiers and athletes are usually willing to invest the years of training and study mastering biotics requires. But psychic abilities are universal in application. Everyone from teachers to merchants to politicians may benefit. Like the Liir, an Asari's psychic power only grows as she ages, and with many decades to study the mental disciplines required to use such abilities, our people have the potential to become some of the most powerful psions in the galaxy.

Such things may be centuries in our future, but many discoveries have benefited our culture already. For over a thousand years, the parentage of an Asari was thought to have no actual impact on the psychology of the child. The father was only used for DNA randomization, and any personality similarities were either due to the father's influence in raising the child or from the placebo effect. We now know this is not true. Asari are all born with a subtle psychic imprint from their father, which may grow stronger if the father was also psychically gifted.

Knowledge of psionics has also provided many medical benefits. The abilities in the Redaction discipline are capable of impressive feats, and it is theorized that long-lived races like the Asari and Liir may rely heavily on abilities in that field to maintain our 'eternal' youth. But less expected benefits have surfaced. 'Ardat Yakshi' were long theorized to be victims of a genetic condition so rare many believed they were nothing more than urban legends created to discourage in-breeding. But the condition is quite real, and is not a mutation at all. Knowledge of psionics have revealed that, rather than being vampiric monsters, the so-called 'Demons of the Night Winds' are nothing more than Asari born with great talent for the War Mind abilities. This has revolutionized the care they receive at their monasteries, and their caregivers hope that several of the best cases may even be released into regular society in a few centuries.

Different species treat psions differently. As the above entries suggest, our people are fully embracing their psychic potential. The Elcor have made a much more measured approach to psychic abilities, which can be expected considering their culture. They have no active training programs at this time, but many older shamanistic traditions are being examined for signs of psychic channeling. The official position of the Illuminated Primacy is that, like the Zuul, their abilities are gifts from their Enkindlers. As such, psychic training and study is greatly tied to theology on their worlds, and powers are to be used for the greater good.

The Tarka have always been suspicious of psychic ability, referring to psions as 'witches'. Despite this, the advantages of psychic abilities were made obvious in the Zuul War, and they have gone through substantial effort to resurrect the traditions they once attempted to crush. Tarkasian psions are automatically conscripted (ostensibly for their own good) and assigned to a team of other psions called a 'Witch Clan'. Witch Clans are organized around a single powerful psion known as a Witch Lord or Witch Queen, who draws power from the rest of the clan and focuses it into powerful abilities. Though the Tarkasians admit the necessity of psions for defense, Witch Clans are still regarded with suspicion and outright prejudice in their society. The only exception to this appears to be individuals that demonstrate skill with Mecha Empathy. Tarkasians regard powers that effect machines differently than those that effect living beings, often not even considering such abilities to be psychic in nature, and empathic smiths are highly regarded.

The Turians have followed a similar path to the Tarka. Individuals with untapped psychic abilities (typically known as Wild Talents after the Human name for such people) are reassigned to cabals the same way Turian biotics are. There they are trained in the use of their powers, and are able to be deployed where they might do the most good. Turian psychic cabals place a great deal of emphasis on unity of purpose, and are quite skilled at forming metaconcerts. Unlike the Tarka, who use their metaconcerts to empower a single individual, the combined power of a Turian cabal is shared equally among all its members. Psychic cabals are commonly used for telepathic coordination and logistics, rather than flashy offensive strikes.

Humanity's racial paranoia has served it well in establishing what they call the Psion Program, a branch dedicated to psychic recruitment and training. Anti-psychic sentiment was running high at the end of the Zuul Wars, when the most horrific applications of mental abilities were at the forefront of Humanity's collective subconscious. Contact with the Council caused a rapid shift in this attitude. Instead of potential monsters, psions were swiftly hailed by SolForce propaganda as Humanity's best hope of retaining its power and identity. Jump Zero, Humanity's first official psychic training program, was founded in 2167 with the assistance of the Liir, and its spiritual successor, Grissom Academy, is one of the most highly regarded training academies in the Orion Arm. Thanks to such facilities and extensive PR support, psions have been fully integrated into almost every branch of SolForce and are highly respected for their skills.

Many Salarian corporations have dedicated a great deal of effort not to studying powers but to studying the genes that select for them. Psions are already much more common than biotics in Salarian society, and several Daltresses have publicly announced mating contracts specifically designed to select for psychic ability. The Salarian-owned corporation Binary Helix recently sponsored a new study of genetics and psychic potential, and have stated openly that they hope this study will eventually pave the way for psychic recessive races to become psychic dominant.

The Hivers appear to be thinking along the same lines. Though no official psychic training program exists for the Imperium, several Clans have acquired a reputation for producing strong psychics. The Ice River clan is famously resistant to mental attack, and the Shattered Forest clan boasts a sizable number of mecha empaths. The Drifting Smoke Clan is even rumored to have several individuals capable of predicting the future. Concerns have been raised, however, about the distribution of these abilities. Not all psionically gifted clans are allied with the current Queen. Some fear that if enough psychic clans united, they might attempt to revolt, throwing the Imperium into another horrific civil war. Despite these concerns, the Imperium has taken no steps to restrict psions or control them in any way.

Psions are treated with equal variety in other cultures. Drell psions are usually recruited and trained by the Hanar, so their psychic traditions are very similar to those of their historic allies. Krogan culture generally does not allow for the introspection more complex powers require, and Krogan psychics are typically shamans or very old warlords. They exhibit an extremely wide variety of abilities, and psychic disciplines are largely self-taught. The Volus are largely scornful and suspicious of psions, believing that abilities like glamour, domination, and telepathy undermine the honesty of business transactions. Most Volus psychics suppress or hide their abilities to avoid stigma. The Quarian Migrant Fleet has not published any official reports on psychic potential among their kind or how such individuals are treated. Interviews with pilgrims and outcasts suggest that Quarians largely favor mecha empathy and metaconcerts, with gifted individuals given both great respect and responsibility.

Though each race responds differently to the psychics in their midst, a somewhat universal system of categorization has gradually emerged. As the Liir have the most experience with psionic abilities, the current categorizations of psychic powers are drawn from their culture and traditions. Much as Human culture created different schools of martial arts or Asari culture created different biotic forms, the Liir divide psychic abilities into several different disciplines. Various distinct abilities fall under the different disciplines, and some require much more talent to master than others. As previously alluded to, certain races or individuals express natural talent for different disciplines. This does not prevent them from learning new abilities. A person's natural mindset seems to have a great deal to do with the abilities they are able to master, which is why some may find they can use certain abilities with almost no effort, but stumble at even the basics of others.

One of the most common psychic disciplines is Empathy. At its most basic, Empathic abilities allow the user to know what other creatures are feeling. The Liir have extremely powerful empathic abilities that are always active. It is a cornerstone of their culture, and is why acts of violence are so shunned in their culture. Only the most depraved would harm another if they were forced to feel the pain of their victims. Our people are also naturally empathic, though to a much lesser degree. This is believed to be one of the reasons the Asari have attained a reputation as peacekeepers and diplomats. Morrigi are also natural empaths, though they generally do not practice this lowest level of empathy, favoring instead the more advanced abilities.

Empathy can not only be used for sensing the emotional states of others, but for detecting life itself. With a minor amount of effort, empaths may detect living beings purely based off the emotions they create. This ability is known among the Liir as 'Life Sense'. With training, Empathy can be used not only to sense emotions, but also to CREATE them. This is the ability the Morrigi specialize in. Morrigi females are famous for inducing fear as a defense mechanism, and Morrigi males create feelings of love and awe with similar ease. This skill may be leveraged even further, letting an empath tap so deeply into the mind of another that she may borrow some of that person's focus and strength. This ability is commonly known as the 'Psi Drain', and use of this power is frowned on unwilling targets is strongly frowned upon even though it does not actually cause permanent harm.

The most complex and powerful Empathic ability is the Glamour. The small glamour we Asari naturally project is actually much closer to emotional inducement that it is true glamour. The images powerful Morrigi project do not merely hide or exaggerate features, but create a complex mental illusions around the user. Traits that do not fit this illusion are the hardest to hide, which is why Morrigi often retain their serpentine or avian qualities even when using a Glamour. But a true master can hide even these tells, assuming the appearance of anything or anyone they wish.

Telekinesis is one of the most common mental abilities, and is certainly one of the most obvious. While clever or weak uses of Empathy are almost undetectable, only the most primitive applications of Telekinesis can be hidden. The concentration and effort required often cause what is known as 'psychic bleed' when an ability is used, even if the effect of the power is not obvious. Bleed is a minor visual effect (usually piercing rays or clouds of colored light) centered around the user and the target. At its core, Telekinesis is the use of the mind to create impart kinetic energy onto a target. Though it is one of the most draining abilities to use, telekinesis still represents a massive violation of the law of conservation of energy. A telekinetic punch can impart far more energy than it drains from its user. The exact mechanics of how this is possible are still not understood, but it is currently theorized that the psion gathers the energy from the environment, rather than from herself.

Telekinetics must normally be able to clearly see their targets to affect them, but this handicap may be overcome with the use of clairvoyance and other sensing abilities. It can be used offensively to throw objects, or to impart direct force to a target in a maneuver typically known as a Telekinetic Punch. Despite the name, TK punches may inflict serious damage and with enough training can be made to create an artificial edge instead of a blunt impact. Telekinetics may control multiple objects at a time, and masters have been known to throw entire storms of shrapnel and other small objects at opponents. This is extremely difficult, however, and most can only control one or two objects at a time. Telekinesis is also useful for defense. Projectiles, even fast-moving ones like bullets, may be deflected away by carefully slanted telekinetic fields. As these fields are pure energy, energy weapons and even lasers may be deflected by such defenses, but ballistic weapons remain the easiest to block.

As telekinesis functions in much the same way that biotics do, a popular question arises: which is superior? Telekinetics are limited only by perception, and unlike thrown mass effect fields they do not necessarily need a clear line to the target. But telekinetic impacts have difficulty penetrating armor, while biotic abilities like Warp shred armor like paper. Both are draining to use. In general, telekinetics allow for delicate non-combat use and are better against small numbers of lightly armored targets. Biotics are superior for dealing with large groups of enemies or for small numbers of heavily armored foes.

What the Liir refer to as the War Mind discipline is a much maligned school that is only recently overcoming the stigma it carries. Much of this stigma is a result of its primary practitioners: the Zuul. All Zuul are naturally gifted when it comes to War Mind abilities, some more than others. The name actually translates poorly, because while most races only have a slightly negative view of war, Liir see it as an abomination. Among the Liir, War Mind abilities are similar to what Humans would call 'Black Magic'. War Mind, when stripped of all its negative trappings, is actually about turning your opponent's strength against her. Novice users of War Mind can trigger massive surges of aggression, turning the target into a berserker that cannot tell friend from foe. Slightly more skilled individuals can actively paralyze targets by exerting just enough mental control to prevent movement. From here, War Mind's abilities turn ugly.

When imbedded so deeply inside someone's psyche, it is possible to literally drain the life from them. This heals and strengthens the user, but is debilitating and often lethal for the victim. It is this ability that Ardat Yakshi use instinctively when they mate, and it is where their deadly reputation comes from. Though Zuul have historically had no issues using this power to murderous effect in battle, Prester Zuul and Liir consider it extremely taboo and permit its use only in the most desperate of situations. Use of this power anywhere in Citadel space is considered assault and is grounds for arrest and prosecution.

The final and most legendary ability available to those who embrace the War Mind is Domination. In the short term, domination allows the user to seize complete control of a target, moving them like a puppet. Small movements, like hand gestures, are simple, but full control is much harder. Certain individuals are more resistant to this than others, but against a master no form of mundane resistance is enough to gain complete freedom. There are many rumors that techniques like meditation or mind-altering chemicals make resistance easier, but these have universally been proven false. A short burst of intense pain is sometimes effective, as the dominator is often exposed to the same pain as the victim when in control. This is still not one hundred percent effective.

As horrific as the short term effects of domination are, it is the long term effects that are best remembered. Domination against an unwilling target always inflicts a level of psychic trauma, but this can be overcome with treatment. But if a dominator can shatter the ego of a victim the results are immediate and horrific. Shattering someone's sense of self is a difficult process, and depending on those involved can take minutes or hours of constants mental struggle. Individuals whose ego has been crushed lose any ability to resist and become almost mindless automatons that a skilled master can control by the dozen. Such people are almost completely insane when removed from this control, and most are beyond help. Resistance is possible even at this level, but only subconsciously. Thralls display their resistance by losing their will to live, feeding themselves less and exposing themselves to greater and greater levels of harm. Most thralls die within several years of their capture as they deliberately grind their bodies to death from a thousand small injuries. Hundreds of millions suffered this fate in the Zuul Wars, and the Zuul were not ignorant of their slaves' limited lifespan. They worked them viciously, attempting to get the most out of their thralls before they 'expired'.

If the War Mind discipline is 'Black Magic', then the Redaction discipline is 'White Magic'. Redaction is all about altering the body in beneficial and helpful ways. Though some have theorized that it could be used offensively to cause crippling mutations in enemies, this is not actually possible in practice. Radical alterations of self are difficult enough, and against an unwilling subject are almost impossible. It would take a psychic on par the oldest Liir Elders to perform such feats.

The most basic use of Redaction is a jolt of psychic energy that supercharges the healing process in a split-second burst. When combined with the effects of psychic bleed, this creates the illusion of instantly healing physical injuries in a wash of light. This energy burst only boosts a body's natural ability to repair itself, it has no effect on diseases, poisons, or psychological conditions. Such conditions still can be soothed or even cured with the correct application of psychic effort, but this 'Curing' ability is much more subtle and requires much more control than basic healing.

More advanced practitioners of Redaction are capable of a feat known as Metabolic Control, allowing them to go without food or water for extended periods. Use of this ability is believed to be how Liir Elders, which can sometimes grow to be the size of military warships, are able to sustain themselves on ordinary diets. Despite the name, metabolic control adjusts the user's metabolism only slightly. Its exact mechanics are unknown, but it is believed to allow the user to absorb the ambient energy of her environment to fuel her body's natural reactions.

The final ability of the Redaction discipline is similar to its most basic ability. But instead of bombarding the body with a surge of healing energy, mastery of the discipline allows the user to infuse her body with a steady stream of this energy almost constantly. Instead of a dramatic burst of healing, the user regenerates continually, quickly healing from damage and injury over a short period of time. Extremely limited but instinctual use of this power is believed to be how Asari and Liir maintain their long lifespans. Both this ability and the more basic ability of Redaction to heal defy the law of conservation of matter, as damaged tissue is repaired spontaneously without any loss of matter from other locations. It is currently theorized that the user collects the molecules for the repair by 'sifting' from nearby points in local space time, gathering the material in such limited quantities as to be unnoticeable.

Redaction is not the only discipline that blatantly violates the laws of reality as we thought we knew them. The Manifestation discipline almost universally features abilities that would be difficult, if not impossible, to replicate with normal technology. Though it is an extremely difficult school to master, even the most basic use of Manifestation allows for the creation of simplistic objects. The most common creation is carbohydrate paste known as 'Manna', after the divinely created bread that features prominently in a historical Human religious myth. Manna is not usually nutritious and is notoriously tasteless, but it can keep an ordinary person fed and hydrated for limited periods of time. Like the flesh crafted by Redaction abilities, the matter Manna is comprised of is thought to be filtered in tiny amounts from the surrounding environment.

Though the creation of simple foodstuffs may defy easy scientific explanation, some of the more advanced Manifestation abilities are easier to explain, but no less astounding. Pyrokinesis is only slightly more difficult to master than the creation of substances like Manna, and allows the user to excite molecules in a large area until they explode into flame. Naturally flammable objects are the easiest to effect, and as such most users prefer to ignite the air around a target than attempt to ignite the target itself.

Continuing this trend to its logical conclusion, powerful users of Manifestation can sever the bonds between molecules, effectively dissolving or disintegrating them on the spot. This ability requires extended concentration and a relatively homogenous material, so it is only useful against objects. Drones and people are too mobile and comprised of too many complex layers to be effected. While pyrokinesis and disintegration at least make a limited amount of sense (but still violate the law of conservation of energy), the final ability of the Manifestation discipline again defies all known logic. The most advanced masters of Manifestation can scan objects at the molecular level and replicate them, effectively making a duplicate that is identical in almost every way. This ability is extremely difficult to learn and use, and as the size of an object increases so does the complexity of copying it. The potential of this ability for economic gain alone has made it a very coveted power, but its difficulty tends to ward off all but the most determined students.

While Manifestation is one of the most obvious uses of psychic ability, Resistance is the subtlest of the disciplines, focusing on isolating one's self from others. At the most basic levels, students of Resistance learn to project what is known as a Psi-Shield. Despite the name, a Psi-Shield is something of a psychic jamming field in the user's immediate vicinity. This allows the shield to not only protect against mental intrusion, but to blunt or even cancel powers like telekinesis or pyrokinesis. All Morrigi females are naturally gifted with this ability to some degree, and many Justicar mental exercises have also been found to develop strength with this ability as well. With practice, a student of Resistnace can learn to isolate herself not only from the mental but also the physical. Psi-Armor allows a user to reinforce the molecular bonds of her clothing or even her skin, effectively granting natural armor. Some theorize that traditional Justicar armor was designed with this ability in mind, as the armor leaves large portions of flesh exposed in lethal areas.

Advanced users can learn to shield themselves even from light, bending it around them to become completely invisible. Invisibility requires intense concentration and is not perfect. Like infiltrator cloaks, a shimmering in the air will give away the user if they are careless. But unlike infiltrator cloaks, the invisibility that Resistance provides cannot be bypassed with abilities like life sense. True masters of Resistance can not only isolate themselves from others, but can punish those who try to break this isolation. As invisibility bends light, Reflection bends all forms of energy, turning them back against their source. Reflection is very difficult to master, and the complexity of modern weapons makes blocking even the most simple attacks incredibly challenging. But when performed correctly, the user can safely reflect even a direct hit from a heavy weapon like a fusion gun.

Mecha Empathy is one of the most recent disciplines to emerge, and is thought to be a response to the use of advanced technology in modern society. Engrams, VIs, and AIs all 'think' on a different energy wavelength than organics, so abilities like telepathy or domination don't work on them. The core talents of Mecha Empathy are really only substitutions for those powers, shifted to work on the same wavelength as synthetics. So-called 'Mecha Sense' allows users to detect the presence of advanced computational equipment, effectively detecting the presence of VIs, Engrams, or AIs. More advanced users can exert momentary control of complex machines, forcing them to shut down or halt for short periods of time. As a user becomes stronger their control grows more complex, letting them force a machine into suicidal overloads or even sizing total control of it for a brief time.

But the most remarkable abilities of Mecha Empathy are not related to synthetic intelligences at all. All mecha empaths seem to have at least some kinship with even simple machines. Even untrained mecha empaths can easily diagnose defects or problems with only cursory examinations. Many claim to 'hear' flaws in the machine, even when the device has no computational equipment at all. Mecha empaths can forge items that bend or even break the laws of physics. The most famous of these creations is Tarkasian Living Steel, a metal that actually regenerates itself over time. Patches of Living Steel can be applied to damaged objects of any material and will bond seamlessly and instantly with them. Weapons forged of Living Steel are capable of incredible feats, such as returning to their wielder's hand when thrown or charging themselves with heat or electricity. Living Steel often bonds to a specific wielder, and once an item is bonded its unique abilities will not function for others. The exact methods used to create Living Steel are a closely guarded secret, and even small amounts of the material can go for hundreds on the open market.

Related to the sensing abilities of Empathy and Mecha Empathy, the Far Sensing discipline focuses on surveying different areas of space time. Clairvoyance is the most common ability for this discipline, and has an almost limitless number of applications. The difference between life sense or mecha sense and clairvoyance is simple. Life/mecha sense detects mental signals like a sensor pulse, reporting back the location of these signals, but without context. Clairvoyance works similarly to quantum entanglement, detecting the quantum state of a specific point in space and relaying that data in a way the user can understand. In layman's' terms: Empathy only finds people, but it finds them regardless of where you were looking. Clairvoyance finds everything, but only where you looked.

The next step up from clairvoyance is Precognition, but there is a sizable difference between the two abilities. Clairoyance observes an area of space. Precognition observes an area of time. The two can be combined to allow the user to see events in another area and another period of time. The exact mechanics of Precognition are complex, but the ability is believed to function like a computer simulation. The precog (sometimes known as an Oracle or Doomsayer) processes the quantum states of a massive area of space time simultaneously, and shows a reasonable guess at what will happen based off this data. As such, long term predictions or ones with massive numbers of variables are almost impossible to make. Precognition is very difficult to control with any degree of accuracy. Many precogs must spend days in meditative isolation to get any results at all, and focusing on a specific event complicates this even further.

Despite this difficulty, precognition is one of the rarest and most highly prized abilities. There are a variety of uses for this power in both civilian and military sectors. Predictions of disasters have saved thousands, and many large corporations allegedly have several paid precogs on staff to analyze investments and business moves. The Elcor Courts of Dakuuna are believed to have historically used a very subtle form of precognition, accidentally predicting future legal problems and setting laws in place to solve them years in advance. The scientific community has found perhaps the most unique use of precognition, however. Many experiments take place in closed environments and have a very limited number of quantum variables, making them easier to focus on. Experiments are started, and a precog looks forward weeks or months in time and reports the results of the experiment immediately. This strategy is known as scientific prolepsis, and if used properly can shave months off complex research projects.

The final psionic discipline is one of the most famous: Telepathy. There is no Liir name for this discipline, as historically the Liir never need one. Telepathy among the Liir is regarded as speech is for other races. It is a natural medium of communication. Though they do not rely on it as heavily as the Liir do, Zuul are also universally skilled with this ability. Telepathy is an integral part of our people's reproduction, and is also part of how Hanar communicate. It is also one of the least trusted abilities because of its potential for abuse.

In actual fact, low-level telepathy such as the kind used by the Hanar is completely harmless. Alien minds are structured very differently depending on the species, making telepathic probes against members of other races very difficult. Even for races as gifted as the Liir, passive telepathy can usually only pick up the mental equivalent of shouts from aliens. The ability is more potent when used against members of the same race, but passive telepathy can still only read a few surface thoughts. Disciplined minds can block this easily. As such, most telepathy is often only useful for reinforcing speech, mentally projecting the idea the user wishes to convey alongside the words that explain it.

It is as this power develops that it becomes more dangerous. Active psychic interrogation is known as Inquisition, after the Zuul who specialize in it. This is rarely a subtle ability, and if not used with the utmost care can cause severe mental damage to target. More disquietingly, as a psion's power grows, the difference between passive and active telepathy shrinks to almost non-existence. To a thousand-year-old Liir Elder, merely focusing on an unshielded individual is enough to reveal much of their mind. Such powerful individuals must expend great care to avoid completely destroying the minds of those they speak with simply by accident.

While active probing can reveal useful information, it is not the limit of what can be done with Inquisition. With effort, memories may actually be ripped from the victim's mind and absorbed by the Inquisitor. This is always psychologically damaging if done without care or to an unwilling subject. The Zuul once specialized in this ability, spending days or even months slowly ripping apart the minds of gifted captives to steal their knowledge and skills. Ripping differs from simple probing in that a probe gives a brief image of a thought or memory, and does not destroy it. Ripping completely removes the memory from the victim, and the Inquisitor experiences it as though he had lived it. Victims of repeated attacks eventually go irretrievably insane unless the Inquisitor returns the memories taken. Even with full restoration, the mental damage can often be permanent, especially if they were extracted violently.

Most races view Ripping as a horrific crime. However, the Liir and Prester Zuul do not. To them, Ripping is nothing but a knife. A killer may use it to stab someone to death, but a surgeon may also use it to cut out a tumor. Prester Zuul Inquisitors, known as Sin Eaters, specialize in carefully extracting painful or traumatic memories from willing patients. They take the memories into themselves, carrying the pain until the day they die. Ripping is normally a severely punishable crime in Council space. But individuals like Sin Eaters may obtain special psychiatric licenses to perform the procedure legally, albeit with great oversight if performed outside of Liir space.

Telepathy has one more possible use: the creation of metaconcerts. Exactly what a metaconcert is can be difficult to define. The best way to describe it might be as a form of hive mind. All members of the metaconcert are telepathically connected. In weak metaconcerts, this can be as simple as allowing vaguely accurate guesses as to what the other members might be thinking or feeling. In strong metaconcerts, individuals share everything, from thoughts to sensations. Liir naturally form metaconcerts with others of their kind on a planet-wide scale. Each planet's Eldest leads the concert, guiding the others. Thus, when a Liir claims to be the Voice for his or her world, it is being literal.

Male Zuul instinctively form metaconcerts with their wives. Mentally, a 'Zuul' is not one individual, but five or six combined to form a unified mind. This link is permanent, and cannot be broken except by death. It is for this reason that the Zuul have maintained their place as single most lethal race in ground engagements. A Zuul squad automatically knows what every other member is doing, sees what they see, and can coordinate flawlessly.

In combat, races like the Zuul and Liir carry this still farther. As a dominator can control slaves like puppets, so too can the leader of a metaconcert unite all its members into a single purpose. A Turian Admiral must give an order to a squadron leader, who must relay it to a ship captain, who must then relay it to a navigator, who must interpret the order's intention as best he can without having any idea of the big picture. A Zuul admiral merely thinks, and his will is done as though his were the hands on the controls. Metaconcerts allow for nearly instantaneous communication, which is why Shepherds (Prester Zuul who specialize in mental control) make such good leaders, both in and out of combat.

Metaconcerts have one final application: synergies. Like biotics, different mental abilities may be used in conjunction with each other for deadly effect. Microtelekinesis relies on clairvoyance to allow the user to sense and manipulate something on the cellular level. Though this is primarily useful in laboratory and manufacturing work, it may be used in combat to induce strokes or other lethal medical conditions. Metaconcerts are also a requirement for one of the most spectacular applications of psychic ability: macro-level powers.

First seen during the Batarian Extermination, a group of powerful psions linked in a metaconcert can work together to create an effect greater than the sum of its parts. Telekinetic fields large and strong enough to hold a starship in place, or even crush it. Planet-wide clairvoyance that can completely survey a planet in hours. Deflection barriers strong enough to block or reflect a shot from a dreadnought's main gun. Seizing control or sabotaging an entire ship with mecha empathy. Macro use of domination through a metaconcert is a key part of how Zuul commanders may use their subordinates as extensions of themselves. The possibilities are almost endless.

Even more astounding, this unique feature of metaconcerts is not limited to psychic abilities. Powerful biotics joined in a metaconcert may unite to use their abilities on levels never imagined possible. In simulations, macro-singularity fields have proven extremely effective against missiles, drones, and small battleriders, while macro-warp blasts are extremely effective at shredding the armor from heavy cruisers and dreadnoughts.

Fortunately for military planners, macro abilities are usually somewhat short ranged. Thus, the old standards of battle have not been completely disrupted by the advent of such a new dimension to combat. But many ships have already begun mounting special modules designed to support and accommodate teams trained for macro combat. The Humans call their version the Xavier module. We call ours an Adytin Chamber.

Similar to macro ability ship modules are amplifier modules. The exception to the rule about psionics and technology not mixing, amp modules use cybernetics to greatly boost the mental power of their occupants. Unlike biotics, where amplifiers may be quite small and unobtrusive, psychic amplifiers must be full-body rigs. They place the user into an artificial coma, allowing them to use the full potential of their mind without having to worry about distractions like pain or breathing. The first of these rigs was created by SolForce, and is known as the CerebroEnergetic Enhancement rig. Though other races have named their rigs differently, the technology is still collectively known by the shorthand for the Human device: CE.

CE technology has led to two other breakthroughs. It was discovered that individuals in a rig have their perceptions and abilities expanded to the point that they may reliably manipulate plasmas and energy fields telekinetically. As such, many races now use CE rigs to increase the power output of their reactors in both manufacturing facilities and on warships. But it was the Tarkasians who found a way to weaponized CE technology.

When a Witch Queen or Lord and their clan are mounted in CE rigs, their powers grow to the point that they can create a beam of pure kinetic energy. Existing as energy in its purest form, the beam can bypass all known methods of shielding to strike with the force of a lancer heavy beam weapon. As the beam is psychic in nature, no complex mounts are required and the beam may fire in any direction while drawing no extra power from the ship's reactor.

Though CE rigs are useful only for psions and the Tarkasian Empire is the only nation that has the technology to create CE lasers, its spiritual counterpart is found in our own Janiri teams. Another application of metaconcerts and biotics, Janiri are trained to apply large warp fields to the main guns of Asari warships. This effectively turns every shot into the equivalent of a high-speed disruptor torpedo, and warp shells are devastatingly effective against targets that lack any form of energy shielding. The warp fields around the projectiles also react strongly with those created by macro-biotics, which increase their impacts even further.

As you have no doubt gathered from this somewhat longwinded essay, psychic abilities have an almost unlimited number of applications. Each race's perception of psionics colors what abilities are common to them, and how they use such powers. Though we have only known about them for a few decades, psionics have already revolutionized the galaxy in ways we can only begin to guess at. Who knows what new discoveries we might make in this mysterious field in the future? Assuming the Orion Arm doesn't use it to try and enslave or kill us all in the next few years.

_**Novice comment:**__ There. I expanded the essay like you asked. I threw in some notes about civilian applications of powers, and some bits about psychic abilities in other cultures up at the top. Happy now, Shiala?_

…_I mean, this humble student awaits your review with much anticipation, honored matron._

_**Pedagia comment: **__The sarcasm is not necessary, Adile, nor is it as clever as you seem to believe it to be. I studied under Matriarch Benezia for two hundred years before her disappearance. I've heard better. If you must make a scornful comment, at least be intelligent about it. Vulgarity is not the same as wit, no matter what films like 'Call Me Sally' would have you believe._

_As for your essay, I agree that this is much closer to the length I expected for such a broad topic. Your text is still somewhat scattered and disjointed, but I found your analysis of psionics in different cultures to be quite insightful. Almost too insightful, considering your previous attempt at this assignment. I found the sudden lack of obvious bias and profanity to be equally suspicious. I must warn you, I do not tolerate plagiarism from my students, Adile. If you got someone else to write this for you, you can consider your position as my student terminated. I don't care who your mother is. _

_**Novice comment: **__Screw you. I wrote every bit of that. All I did was ask some of my Youth United group some questions about psionics. You're always on me to consider other perspectives, so I went and found some. _

_**Pedagia comment:**__ And how do you explain the sudden shift in your writing style, which is usually so…colorful?_

_**Novice comment:**__ I asked them to edit it for me. I don't have the patience for that crap. It's like you said in when we covered economics: import what you need and export what you have. Lee needed help studying for his test on Council History, I needed to not get yelled at for using 'Azure' as a body part and not a color. Everyone wins. Interspecies cooperation in action._

_**Pedagia comment:**__ I see. As much as I appreciate the cleverness you displayed in seeking out first-hand sources to interview for your paper, I must disapprove of then using those sources to edit your work. This assignment was about your skill, not theirs. You must learn not to rely on others to assist you when you have difficulty, as must your friend Lee. The two of you should stand strong on your own. _

_**Novice comment: **__You sound like a Human. _**[PROFANITY DELETED]**_ you._

**FINAL ANALYSIS:**

Full marks. Adile's foreign study group is proving to be an even more positive influence than I could have anticipated. There may be hope for her yet.


	52. Corrupt (Story)

_...and we're back! I've had a few comments mentioning how odd it is that a story called _Shepherd of the Stars_ doesn't really have much Shepard in it. Yes. That is odd. Let's fix that, shall we? For those of you wondering, yes, I will eventually give Shepard's gender and backstory. It would be too cumbersome not to, in the long run. But for now, I'm milking this gimmick for all its worth._

_This is also our first look at what things are like on Thessia. There's a lot of stuff I had to leave out, largely because Ash wouldn't know or care, but much of how things have shaped up on the planet are based off nuclear blast simulations on real cities and historical disaster response to events like the 2004 Tsunami. _

_Reviews are naturally appreciated! The next Codex will be coming later this week, and is a look a SolForce's capital, as written by The Poarter. See you then! _

* * *

"This is Thessia? I don't understand."

"What's not to get?" Jacob asked, pulling a large crate from the shuttle's cargo hatch and dropping it to the ground with a thump. "Antimatter bombardment isn't exactly pretty."

"Yeah, but the _Leviathan_ attacked months ago. I thought they would have at least started rebuilding by now," Ashely said, surveying the area around them with a wary gaze. "Human colonies can have hab-domes up in hours. These people are living in tents!"

The city looked more like the images she'd seen of Tuchanka than the usual graceful spires she associated with Asari worlds. The city of Niacele used to be one of Thessia's larger metropolises, and the _Leviathan_ had apparently taken that into account. Niacele had been hit with ten different missiles, the full payload of an IOBM MIRV, and from the looks of the craters the warheads had been set to airburst for maximum damage. Several of the city's huge skyscrapers had been toppled or completely annihilated by the blasts, and the rest now loomed over the gutted city like the decaying skeletons of giants.

The many walkways and thoroughfares that connected the battered spires hadn't fared any better. Most had collapsed, and the rest were pulverized messes of debris and rubble. The thousands of skycars that would normally have crisscrossed the city's skyline in endless streams were gone now, replaced by several dozen military transports that flitted around like flies on a corpse, each on their own errand. The remains of the skycars could still be seen in the scattered craters and trenches smashed into the landscape as the vehicles had been thrown out of the sky in their hundreds following the impacts.

"The missiles destroyed a majority of the local infrastructure," put in Shepard. Like the rest of the ground team, the Commander was covered in bland brown rags similar to the ones favored by Utilitarians. The pacifistic order was one of the few Human groups still welcome on the Asari homeworld, and posing as aid works gave them an easy excuse for the heavy crates she and Jacob had just finished unloading. "Just trying to build enough support facilities to start rescue operations would be a major task. Civilian housing is a secondary priority."

"The Commander is right," Jacob said, handing her the final crate. She heaved it onto the gravity sled they were using to move them to the drop point and took up a position beside Shepard at the head of the sled. She felt exposed without her combat armor, and the large pistol she wore beneath her disguise was a poor replacement for her fusion cannon. "Rescue work isn't like setting up on a frontier world. It's long and complicated, and the sheer amount of refugees here just makes it that much harder. The Asari don't have the space or the legal right to just build a prefab city wherever they want."

"You've done rescue work?" Ashley asked, surprised.

"Yeah. I used to be Utilitarian, so when I was younger I traveled to a lot of Freeholds trying to help out," he remarked, assuming a casual rear-guard position as Shepard crouched down to punch their destination into the sled's navigation computer. It lifted off the ground and began to drift forward as the Blue Section operative continued. "Then the Skillian Blitz happened, the Batarians started upping their attacks on Freeholds, and rescue work just didn't seem like it was enough, you know?"

"I know what you mean. Pulling people out of a collapsed building is great, but it's better if you can stop it from collapsing in the first place." Ashely nodded as they began walking, carefully keeping pace with the sled. The landing platforms for civilian vehicles were on the edges of the sprawling shanty town the city's surviving population now lived in, and its forest of prefabs and rescue tents weren't set up with vehicles in mind. A hover transport would draw too much attention anyway. "Still, Utilitarian? I bet your family took the news of your enlistment well."

"It hit my mom the hardest. She raised me Utilitarian, and she couldn't understand how I could wind up Broken. I'd like to think my Dad would have gotten me though. He believed in the ideal of the Greatest Good, but he never really took to the pacifism. He and my mom agreed to disagree. His ship was lost out in Verge back in '99, so I guess in the end I'll never know how he'd feel about it."

There was an awkward pause, filled only by the noises from the refugee camp ahead and the crunch of shattered tile under their boots. Desperately trying to find a way out, Ashley looked toward the Commander, but Shepard gave no sign of even having heard what they were talking about.

"I'm sorry," she said finally, wincing at how insincere that probably sounded. "I didn't know."

"No reason you should have. Honestly, it was almost ten years ago. I've come to terms with it," he replied. "Still, how about you? Religious at all?"

"Neo-Catholic," she answered with a nod.

"I've known some Neo-Catholics before. Good people, for the most part," Jacob said, before straightening to address the head of their little procession. "How about you, Shepard?"

Shepard said nothing, but the Commander's lips turned up in a small smile. Instead of becoming annoyed by his leader's taciturn response, Jacob just laughed.

"One of these days, you're going to give me something."

The smile grew even broader, but vanished instantly as two figures darted out of a nearby building. She saw the Commander's hand twitch almost reflexively, but then relax as the shapes resolved into a pair of Asari children. Which was an odd phrase, Ashely reflected, consider either of these 'children' could be older than she was.

"I don't remember seeing any of you around before!" chirped one of the girls, smiling through the dust and dirt that covered her face and clothes. "Are you new?"

"Tristana, this isn't a good idea. We should just go," said the other, a slightly smaller girl who hovered nervously in the first's shadow. "They probably don't want to be bothered."

"Oh, come on Eshme," stated the larger girl, before turning back to face the trio. "If you're new, you probably need someone to show you around. The camp's pretty big, and there aren't any signs. Where are you headed?"

"Tistana!" whined the second girl, leaning in closely to whisper into her partner's ear. "We shouldn't be talking to them! These aren't Hivers or Tarka! It's not safe to talk to Humans!"

Ashley was unsure which affected her more: the second child's laughable attempt at whispering, which had hardly been any softer than her normal voice, or the idea that a child might actually be scared of her. Hivers were two-meter bug monsters with blades, spikes, and a natural urge to kill anything secreting estrogen. Tarka were steroid-fueled killing machines that could out-muscle a Krogan and were prone to violent rages. And it was the short, hairless apes these kids were scared of? She wasn't sure if she should be flattered or horrified.

"It's okay," Tistana said comfortingly, not even bothering to whisper. "Look at their clothes. They're Utilitarians! Remember? Utilitarians are okay. They won't hurt us."

Eshme didn't seem fully convinced, but she stopped protesting.

"So?" asked Tistana, smiling again. "Where are you all going?"

Something in the Asari girl's face reminded Ashley of her youngest sister Sarah. She started to smile reflexively when a horrible thought entered her brain. What if this was a trap? Crime was rampant on Thessia right now. Billions were homeless and destitute. Since almost everything had to be imported, Blue Sections' reports claimed that even essential supplies were stretched critically thin. Local law enforcement would have been swamped at the best of times, and most of them had died in the initial strikes. The planetary government had even started hiring Eclipse mercenaries to help keep order, which was always a recipe for disaster. Mercs tended to cause more problems than they solved.

It would be all too easy for a gang of thugs to hire a few kids to front for them, pretending to be poor orphans so they could lure unsuspecting visitors into a lethal ambush. Since the three of them had a loaded grav-sled, Ashley guessed they'd be extremely attractive marks for such tactics. Real Utilitarians didn't carry weapons, so they'd be the perfect targets. Even if it wasn't something so sinister, they could easily be thieves of a more mundane variety. She'd read Dickens, and the Artful Dodger was clever enough without forty years to hone his craft.

Now that she knew what to look for, the girl's resemblance to Sarah was obviously just glamour. She could still see it, but now that Ashley knew what to look for the effect was severely lessened. That by itself wasn't evidence of guilt, since Asari used their glamour reflexively. A girl who wanted to be liked would activate it even without meaning to, but these two seemed pretty young to be so skilled with such tricks. Even their initial fear might have just been part of the ruse. It created an illusion of vulnerability and played off natural parental instincts. Humanity was famous for having some of the strongest connections to their offspring of any species, after all, and these two were at least as old as she was. Someone that old would be more than familiar with the techniques needed to use her youthful appearance to her advantage.

"Shepard, we're already running late," she snapped, her tone harsh. She couldn't openly warn the Commander about the girls' possible treachery, but she'd been on Shepard's team for a while. She knew how to talk without actually speaking. "We don't have time for this."

Shepard nodded and waved the sled forward, sliding around the two Asari children with barely a second glance. Jacob was more social, trotting forward a few steps to crouch in front of the pair.

"I'm afraid she's right. Don't worry, we already know where we're going," he explained, before fishing around in his pockets to pull out a small plastic back. "Here. This is for you."

"Thanks!" they chorused behind her before darting off to enjoy their spoils.

"See, I told you they were okay! Utilitarians are nice!" echoed Tistana's faint voice as they walked away.

"The lady wasn't very nice. And the other one didn't even say anything!"

"Yeah, but look what we got! There's chocolate in this! Human chocolate, not the bitter Tarka stuff!"

"Chocolate? I want some!"

Ashley shook her head as they rounded a corner and passed out of pair's line of sight. Even if they were decades-old psychics, they obviously still had a lot to learn about guilt trips. Her younger sisters were much more vicious about it.

"You shouldn't have given them anything," she declared finally, shooting a quick glance back at Jacob. "At best those two were panhandlers. It's obvious they were just looking for a handout."

"So? They're kids, Williams, and all I did was give them some trail mix. What was I supposed to do, tell them to quit slacking and get a job?"

"It was a con. They play the pitiful waif routine when new arrivals show up so they can sucker bleeding hearts like you out of some credits or candy," Ashely explained with a frown as they began walking along the edge of the camp. Her eyes glanced habitually from the milling Asari refugees to their left and the empty ruins to their right as she tried to guess where a surprise attack would most likely originate from. "That kind of thinking shouldn't be rewarded, regardless of how old those kids were. You should have ignored them."

"Really? Does this sound familiar? 'Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back.'"

"It's Luke 6:30. And I really wish people would stop quoting the Bible at me every time I get into an argument," she snapped. "My religion isn't a weapon you can use to try and prove a point."

"No, your religion, like all religions, is a set of stories, beliefs, and rules that are supposed to show you how to live a good life," Jacob countered. "And the religion you claim to follow has some pretty specific rules about charity."

"Pope Theodore IV clarified those passages back in 2246. The faithful are not obligated to give charity if it would be harmful to the recipient's moral wellbeing."

"Isn't that like saying it's alright to torture someone into conversion, because the benefit to his soul outweighs the harm to his body?"

"Oh, you really want to go down this road?" Ashley snapped angrily. "Fine. 'War is like holding a shit eating contest. The winners are somehow proud of their superiority at a task no sane person would wish to be skilled at, the losers feel the need to start a second contest simply to justify their own effort, the observers are both fascinated and disgusted at the same time, and everyone involved comes out with a bad taste in their mouths. The good news is there always seems to be one of these contests going on nowadays, so those who wish to become soldiers are free to pull up a plate. There's plenty of shit to go around.'"

"The Gospel of the Comedian. There's some funny stuff in there," agreed Jacob with a nod. "Christianity might have spread faster if Jesus had thrown some off-color jokes into the Sermon on the Mount. I'm also impressed you have such a long quotation memorized. Are you sure you don't want-"

"Quiet," interrupted Shepard, holding up a hand. "We're being watched."

She glanced around and saw an oval drone skimming along the wreckage to their right, carefully keeping pace with them.

"_Asari recon drone,"_ Ashley subvocalized, the implants in her neck clearly transmitting her voice to the others. _"It's an older model. Probably belongs to the Eclipse."_

Shepard nodded before looking at Jacob, glancing toward the drone, and then closing one fist. The psion nodded. His eyes flashed and a small section of wall gave way above the drone. A wave of metal and glass showered down on the hapless observer, crushing it instantly.

"They're going to know we had something to do with that," Ashley warned. "They'll send another drone."

"It doesn't matter. Legally, they can't prove we did anything, and we're almost there."

Shepard pointed toward a collapsed building just ahead of them. Someone had painted the phrase _"Blue Power"_ in an eye-assaulting cyan color on one of the walls, but had apparently departed in a hurry. The final letter trailed off in a curve leading around the far edge of the building, away from the camp's line of sight.

They followed the paint around the end of the structure, and Ashley noticed the line continued for several feet, ending in a final downward curl. Shepard walked over to the wall, stooped, and pulled a small camouflage net off the ground to expose a large metal hatch. The Commander's omni-tool glowed, and the hatch swung open to reveal a set of stairs leading downward.

"Don't just stand there, get your asses down here!" growled a gruff voice from within.

She didn't like the tone but obediently led the way down, carefully guiding the front of the grav-sled while Jacob took the rear. The stairs led to a basement of some kind, but it was carved out of the glassy clay the Asari used instead of the mat-gray concrete favored by SolForce. It had likely been a storage area of some kind, but the neat racks of smooth containers had been torn apart and shoved into a huge pile in the corner of the room. Someone had rearranged them into a vaguely chair-like formation and covered it with a blanket, though she couldn't fathom exactly why.

"Welcome to my little underground kingdom," said the voice broadly. It belonged to a balding, slightly over-weight man in white pants and a blue tunic. He sat sprawled on the crates and blanket, and his cocky smile finally explained what strange setup was supposed to be. It was a throne.

That alone would have been enough to make Ashley dislike the man, but the rest of the small basement was no better. An outdated suit of white and blue combat armor was heaped carelessly in a corner, and an old A-43 Mag Rifle lay on the floor beside it. The weapon looked like it hadn't been properly cleaned in weeks. A large table had been set up along one wall, and the remains of several field ration packs carelessly littered its surface

Much of the walls were covered in pinups of scantily clad women, several of which were blatantly pornographic. A large poster also caught her eye, showing an armored boot smashing a Hiver skull with the phrase 'Stomp the Bugs! Join SolForce today!' in large letters beneath it. It was placed next to another poster, featuring a soldier in combat armor dragging a dead Tarka by the tail and holding up a combat knife (an improperly rendered one, Ashley noted). The caption to this poster read 'Join the Ground Forces and Bag Yourself a Croc!'

She recognized both instantly. They were part of a series of digital recruitment images that had been discontinued by the personal orders of Director MacKenzie following the Hiver Armistace in 2434. He had apparently hated them so much he not only cancelled the image line, but had the files deleted from the Mars Archives themselves. Ashley could see why. They were disgustingly racist and brutally violent, designed more to put an end to any thoughts of peaceful coexistence with aliens as they were to actually increase recruitment.

"I see you're checking out my prized possessions," crowed the man with an ugly smirk. "They're originals. I've got a guy on Isis whose going to hook me up with the rest of the set soon, but if that's your sort of thing, babe, I've got some other stuff I could show you in a more…personal setting."

"They can't be originals," Jacob said, his face twisted into a frown of disapproval. On this, Ashley could completely agree. The man was a pig. "SolForce doesn't make physical printouts of their PR material. It's a waste of resources. Something you would know, Harkin, if you bother to do any research at all."

"They've got Humans killing aliens. Why would I need to know anything else?" the man said dismissively, before sitting up in recognition. "And, Jacob Taylor, as I live and breathe. Last time we met, you made some rather creative threats about what you'd like to do to me. It must be so humiliating to know that someone who thinks so highly of himself constantly has to come crawling back to me for help."

"Lieutenant Williams, this sewer rat is Harkin," announced Jacob with a heavy sigh. "Formerly of SolForce, where he was dishonorably discharged for conduct unbecoming. He applied to the Blue Suns, but even they wouldn't take him. So now he's in charge of one of their off-the-books 'associate' groups."

"The Blue Suns didn't refuse me," Harkin snapped angrily. "They decided my talents were better suited toward management and covert operations. I picked this job. Better pay, much safer, and lots of…perks, if you catch my drift."

"He runs drugs," explained Shepard flatly, coming down the stairs.

"Who the hell are you?" Harkin asked, eyes slowly scanning Shepard up and down. "I was expecting Miranda."

"She sent me instead. Apparently, she's tired of you staring at her breasts every time she tries to talk to you," Shepard replied with disinterest. "The hatch is secure and I've covered it back up. I trust you have another way out?"

"I'm not an idiot," drawled the man dismissively. "And if that tease didn't want me looking, she should put on some actual clothes."

"Ash, Jacob, we'll take off as soon as the crates are unloaded," said the Commander, completely ignoring Harkin. "Leave the sled, we don't need it anymore."

"Ash?" the grotesque man asked as they began picking up boxes and stacking them on the floor. "As in 'Ashely'? Ashely Williams, my god. Oh, they're never going to believe this. The granddaughter of the legendary General Williams, Hero of Humanity, reduced to drug running like common street scum? This is priceless."

"Drug running?" Ashely asked, pausing in confusion.

"Really? They didn't even tell you what was in these?" Harkin smirk in a way that just made her want to hit him.

"I didn't ask," she snapped defensively.

"Of course not. You're a good little solder. You'd never question orders."

He walked over to one of the crates, but his foul grin vanished when he found himself staring down the length of Shepard's pistol. The Commander's eyes narrowed darkly.

"This isn't a gift. You don't touch the merchandise until after you hand over the data."

"Take the stick out," said Harkin dismissively. "You think I've never done this before? SIC doesn't get shit until after I've inspected the goods."

"Fine." Shepard kicked the nearest container open, spilling shimmering purple dust onto the floor. "It's all there."

"Ever see this before, sweetheart?" the man crooned at Ashley, scooping up a handful of the powder and offering it to her.

"Powdered Egoline-27. Glamour dust," she replied, keeping her tone flat as she gave the drug's more common name. "Morrigi boil it and inhale the steam for a mild psychic boost and hallucinogenic effect. It's harmless to Humans."

"It's harmless to BASELINE Humans. Glowy freaks like Taylor over there aren't so lucky." Harkin leered, and Ashley had to stop herself from kicking him just on principle. "And that cloudsurfing the Morrigi do is for pussies. People round here just snort the stuff. Gets more into your system faster."

She continued trying to ignore him as the pile of cases slowly dwindled, but he seemed to confuse her cold shoulder with an invitation to continue his ramble.

"Yeah, Asari can't get enough of this crap. One line and they start turning every color of the rainbow. Two and it's off down the rabbit hole they go. Do three, and Wonderland starts coming to you, baby." Though she tried to keep her confusion off her face, Harkin still somehow noticed. "That's why they call it glamour dust, toots. Jacks up psychic glamour to the point where you stop seeing colors and start making 'em. It's real popular in the brothels round here. I can vouch first-hand, screwing a bitch that's smashed out of her mind on g-dust is the wildest sex you're ever going to get."

"Didn't think someone like you'd actually stoop to sleeping with aliens anyway, Harkin," Jacob stated, his voice full of disgust.

"Hey, I've got needs too, and it's not like I want to marry 'em. Turn out the lights and a blue whore feels the same as any other color." He laughed.

"Commander, request permission to beat him until he stops twitching," she growled, patience finally snapping. Harkin wasn't just a disgrace to Humanity, he was a disgrace to life in general. Much to her disappointment, Shepard raised a hand to wave her off. Harkin grinned once again.

"Don't you look down on me, Williams. I'm providing a valuable community service! It's not like they wouldn't be doing it either way. You know what Asari are like. They'll do anything with a pulse."

"I'd think that even they'd make an exception for something like you," she spat back, throwing the last crate to the ground with a crash. "I'm starting to see why even the psychos in the Blue Suns didn't want to hang around someone like you. Even xenophobic assholes have to have standards."

"Hey, I've got standards! It's not like I'm kidnapping people off the streets like the Eclipse and Bloodpack are," protested the bald man. "I tell you, if I switched from drug dealing to slave trading, I could make enough off this planet to retire. Slaves are going for a mint out in the Terminus now that the Hegemony's history, and Asari kids are worth their weight in platinum."

Shepard's gun flashed out again, and the safety light visibly blinked from green to lethal red.

"I'm sick of your stalling. You've inspected the product," growled Shepard. "I want the data. Now."

"Fine, fine," Harkin muttered, pulling up his omnitool and pressing a few keys. "There. Happy?"

"No," replied Shepard simply, but the pistol began compressing itself into storage mode again. The Commander nodded toward Ashley and Jacob. "We should go."

"Always nice doing business with SIC," drawled Harkin sarcastically. "I'll be seeing you."

"No. You won't."

Shepard led the others out of the filthy room into the dusty remnats of the Asari structure. It had probably been an apartment building of some kind, with sweeping, artistic halls and smooth walls that looked like they were made of glass. The visual effect was ruined by the damage the building had suffered. The glossy walls were threaded with cracks, the domed lights built into the ceiling burnt and shattered. The ceiling had collapsed in several areas, and the first set of stairs they passed had been buried when a huge section of the wall blew in.

"Commander. Permission to speak freely?" Ashley asked as they walked.

"Granted."

"What the hell was that?" she snapped, her suppressed frustrations boiling out of her. "We're smuggling drugs now? And to scum like that? This wasn't part of the plan. Whatever this data is, I'm sure we could have just taken it by force. Miranda's a tech empath, after all, and I could have always beaten it out of him."

"He's more than earned it," Jacob agreed. "I'm just glad I'm no good at telepathy or empathy. It's no wonder the Asari are throwing things at him."

"The data is worthless," stated Shepard calmly, shoving open a door that had long-since been jammed shut when a support beam was thrown through it. "Everything he gave me Black Section learned weeks ago."

"What?" Ashley asked, her temper building again. "You're saying we just handed a small fortune of illegal drugs over to a man like Harkin for nothing?"

"It's called Operation Mary Jane," Jacob said with a heavy sigh. "Blue Section's been dumping drugs like glamour dust into alien space for the better part of a decade now. It's supposed to weaken their economies and cause civil unrest."

"I don't believe this!" She smashed her fist into a nearby wall in frustration, and had to snap her mouth shut to avoid a pained yell. The glass-like surface was surprisingly solid, and without her armor the impact really hurt. Forcing the throbbing away, she continued. "We're SolForce, damn it! When the hell did the shepherds of Humanity become petty bullies and drug dealers?"

"Look, I don't like it any more than you do," replied the psion. "But peace is more complicated than war. If the Council's Spectres are busy hunting down filth like Harkin in their own territory, they won't be causing trouble in Human space."

"I'm no fan of aliens shoving us around either, but that doesn't justify giving drugs-"

"The drugs weren't the point either," Shepard interrupted. "The sled was bugged."

"What?" asked Ashley and Jacob simultaneously.

"Those drugs are never going to reach circulation. Harkin is just the bait. As we speak, Mirada is leaking the bug's tracking frequency to our real target. She'll take him down, then back track the drugs to his last customers. We'll ambush her there."

"So we're really going through with this?" Ashely asked cautiously. "Tela Vasir's a Spectre."

"This is still a Council homeworld," reminded Jacob. "If we get caught attacking a Spectre here, it'll almost certainly mean war with the Council. Are you sure it's worth the risk?"

"It's a big galaxy, Lieutenant." Shepard frowned darkly. "The Council may be the least of our problems."


	53. Olympus Mons (Codex)

_It's been a while, but The Poarter has passed along a new guest codex for us, featuring the capital of SolForce. The Poarter has some of his own projects going, so if you like his work here, please stop by his page and take a look!_

_Naturally, reviews are most welcome, and I'll pass any comments along (assuming The Poarter doesn't just read them straight at the source). See you in a few weeks for the exciting conclusion of Tali and Garrus' cliffhanger. Yeah, been waiting a while for that one, haven't you..._

* * *

Olympus Mons (Redirect from 'Marsdome')

Location: Sol, Fourth Planet

City Proper: 250 Kilometer Radius From Base of Mountain.

Population of City Proper: 40,564,302

Demographics: 94.7% Human, 5.3% Alien.

"Flip a coin. Values the Council boasts as true and stead-fast are just as uplifting as they can be devastating...What Humans value may not necessarily be what Asari or Hivers value. Asari greatly value the freedoms and liberties of the individual. As a Human who has lived and fought in two galactic wars, my values are for a government which is honest, effective and efficient. If we had followed a model of free press, political opposition, and free elections, Humanity would not be alive today."

-City Chairman Goh Kuan Loong, 2478 Retirement Address

The City Proper of Olympus Mons is classified as the any settlement within a 250 kilometer radius of the Olympus Mons volcano. Olympus Mons stands 21 kilometers tall, and is 600 kilometers wide and is the largest mountain in the Sol system. Much of the city is built on the volcano's lower slopes or around its base. Though the settlement itself shares a name with the volcano it surrounds, it is more popularly known as Marsdome to the rest of the galaxy, after the massive complex built into the center of the volcano.

The city's most well-recognized feature is the Blasky Yao-Hsiang monument. The monument is a full scale replica of the famous Sol Primus Node Pod, Humanity's first FTL vessel, and is cast of solid neutronium. It is located at the center of the Marsdome complex, and according to its creator stands as a symbol of Humanity's unshakable resolve and scientific drive.

Olympus Mons is well known for its various attractions but especially its sculpture garden which is filled with busts and icons of important human historical figures. Sculptures are required to go through a vigorous vetting process before they are finally accepted into the garden. The current number of sculptures stands at 1083. Notable areas of the garden include the Civil Walk, containing statues of important Human political thinkers like Lee Yuan Kee, Thomas Hobbes, and King Hammurabi, and the River of Enlightenment, where statues of major Human scientific figures like Albert Einstein, Blasky Yao-Hsiang, and Issac Newton are located.

The city of Olympus Mons is considered the capital of SolForce in general and is one of the largest and most populous cities in Human space. Its population represents a wide variety of human traits and ideals, from Shia Islam to Neo-Catholicism to Utilitarianism. Aliens are much more poorly represented, as the hab-domes required to accommodate them comfortable create a natural form of ghettoization. Significant civil control has resulted in a lower ratio racial violence to population than on most frontier worlds, but there are very few opportunities available for aliens.

Nevertheless Olympus Mons is a massive center of growth and administration, and is still considered a viable destination for many sentient beings. All official SolForce documents have at least one digital and physical copy in the Marsdome Archives. Olympus Mons also serves as the headquarters for the Legate Council and SolForce Director, as well as Humanity's various other administrative bodies. As a military center, the Marsdome complex is heavily defended, and virtually all of it is off limits to casual visitors.

Due to wide-spread terraforming and its position along the planet's equator, Olympus Mons has a somewhat arid sub-tropical climate and its lower settlements are considered to be some of the warmer locations on Mars. Temperatures reach an average high of 31 degrees Celsius in the summer and lows of 10 degrees Celsius in the winter. Smog plays an issue in many areas but proactive administrative efforts have negated a majority of atmospheric toxins. Compared to much of Earth, Olympus Mons is far more suitable and comfortable for living, especially after the aftermath of the Conflagration and Hiver Incursion.

The history of Olympus Mons demonstrates why it was founded and how it quickly grew to importance. Many historians have noted that Olympus Mons' importance continuously grows with each new crisis SolForce and by extension Humanity in general, faces.

Immediately after the Hiver Incursion was repulsed, a massive colonization movement began as Director Ashilde Falke began attempting to scatter Humanity as much as she could in anticipation of a second strike by the Hivers. As such, though Mars was one of the closest planets, it was rejected for early colonization because it provided no strategic benefit. Falke also believed colonists would not volunteer to travel to more risky colonies on the frontier if a viable alternative was available closer to Terra. As such, she forbade the terraformation and settling of Mars.

Though actually settling Mars was not an option, Olympus Mons still possessed enormous amounts of relatively pure raw metals lying beneath the surface of the volcano. Mars' crust lacks a mobile plate structure, and Olympus Mons had been episodically spewing lava for several million years prior to Humanity's arrival. As a result, various rare metals that would normally be difficult to find could be easily located with a minimum of digging required. Several hab-domes were constructed during the Hiver-Tarka War to facilitate mining of the volcano, but these were always intended as temporary structures that would be abandoned when the volcano's resources had been exhausted.

This changed when Falke's successor, Edward Alton Mackenzie, moved his headquarters off Terra and to the caldera of Olympus Mons. At the time, the move was nothing but a symbolic change meant to separate his rule from that of his predecessor. Mackenzie's assassination of Director Falke had left much of SolForce in turmoil, and the gesture was hoped to settle some of this chaos as well as distance SolForce's authority from older institutions like the Holy See or Consortia governments. Olympus Mons was selected for its symbolic impact and because the network of mining tunnels and volcanic chambers would allow them to easily build directly into the mountain.

Like many seats of power, Mackenzie's choice led to a slow but inexorable relocation of the dozens of support assets to assist the office of the Directorate. This support staff required housing, and then housing for their families. The growing population provided a market for entertainment and other purely civilian endeavors. As the size of the settlement grew, the cost of constant habitat construction began to increase, until Mackenzie officially repealed Falke's decision and approved the terraforming of Mars.

Another expansion of Olympus Mons was caused by the Zuul Wars. The Zuul's ability to tear information from the minds of captives and the overwhelming fury of their early onslaughts forced SolForce to rethink much of their current deployment. Command positions that had originally been placed toward the edges of Human space were rapidly relocated to more centralized posts to prevent them from being captured and compromised. As the seat of the current Director, Mars was at the center of this, and rapidly became the beating heart of Humanity. It was during the Zuul Wars that Marsdome became an informal title for SolForce's upper command staff, and the office of the Directorate in particular.

Furthermore, the emergency emigration away from besieged frontier colonies caused Mars to become a central destination for refugees seeking shelter. It had the appropriate infrastructure, was a major hub for trade and interstellar traffic, its developing biosphere was better equipped to handle such individuals than Terra's, and it was well defended.

By the end of the Zuul Wars, Olympus Mons was the official and unofficial capital of Humanity. Discovery of the Mass Effect and increasing knowledge of the antigravity properties of Element X allowed for the construction of the Olympus Mons space elevator connecting the city to the Mars Trade Nexus space station. The elevator allowed for easy shipment of goods and minerals into orbit, as well as allowing orbital workers to live on the planet instead of in space habitats. This has dramatically increased the population of Olympus Mons in the past few decades.

That is not to say Olympus Mons is not without its fair share of problems. It has one of the lowest crime rates of any known Human city, but these are largely a result of its draconian laws and the severe limits the local government places on the population. Political repression is a reoccurring problem. 'Seditious thinking' is a punishable offense, and while arrests for this crime are less common under Director Freeborne than they were under Director Mackenzie, those who speak too strongly against the current leadership often end up in prison for extended periods or banished from SolForce territory all together.

Furthermore, the few non-human businesses that have opened to cater to the city's civilian population have historically faced discrimination and acts of sabotage or vandalism. Campaigns launched in recent years by pro-Human groups like Sol Invictus to support Human economic interests by 'Buying Human' have also caused difficulty for alien-run businesses. Many interstellar entrepreneurs prefer opening businesses on Tcho'to'pre or Kao'Kona, where outsiders are somewhat more welcome. Nevertheless, alien residents of Olympus Mons maintain a philosophical attitude about the trials they face, viewing them as the natural hazards of doing business in such a Human-dominated location.

As per the colonial charter of Mars, Olympus Mons recognizes English, Nova Latina, and Hanzi as its official languages. The more obscure and historical languages of Hindi, Arabic, Spanish, French, and Portuguese are also commonly used, but are not officially recognized. The fact that Mars' official languages are also the three languages officially recognized by SolForce is not a coincidence. Current city law requires any public servant to demonstrate fluency in at least two of these languages before assuming his or her post. The average civilian sentient on Olympus Mons works about 45 hours a week, and over two thirds of the population is a member of SolForce or is independently employed by it.

Olympus Mons officially recognizes 11 public holidays, but does not require businesses to give time off for any of these. Time off work for celebrations or religious gatherings must be requested on an individual basis, and are at the discretion of the employer.

Marsdome houses a permanent garrison of troops known as the Praetorian Guard. Like the ancient soldiers they are named after, the Praetorian Guard are elite soldiers tasked with protecting the Legate Council and Director of SolForce. The Praetorian Guard is one of the best trained and best equipped forces in Human space, and they exist outside the standard chain of command. Olympus Mons is also home to a SolForce Guards battalion.

Mars' colonial charter follows the example of many earlier charters crafted during the Hiver-Tarka War and requires all citizens to spend a minimum of two continuous weeks in military training, and 60 hours per month in drills with their respective militia units. In the event of an emergency, command of these militia units falls to the SolForce Guards. Citizens listed as conscientious objectors, such as practitioners of Utilitarianism, may instead opt for an equivalent amount of community service or pay a fine.

Olympus Mons has several major academies and institutes for higher learning. Olympus Mons Academy of Application in particular was among the most highly regarded schools in the known galaxy. Its reputation has begun to fade in recent years, as many of its graduates report being unprepared for positions in less homogenous areas of Human space due to the Academy's 'Human-only' admittance policies and emphasis on practical sciences over cultural or artistic programs. Olympus Mons is home to several athletic teams, including its own football team, the Olympians, which is currently ranked in the top ten for Human competitions.

Like all cities on Mars, health-care is state-funded, but no monetary form of welfare or public aid is provided. Destitute individuals may instead opt to become wards of the state. Wards are effectively indentured servants contracted to the local government. The colonial government is obliged to provide a minimum standard of living for its wards, and they in turn are required to provide a number of hours of productive work each day. This system is an evolution of the old Consortium labor laws first crafted on Terra during the Reconstruction to ensure that Humanity survived after the horrors of the Thaw and the Conflagration.

The average life expectancy of a Human living in Olympus Mons is 116 years, with advanced medical technology keeping most from having to retire until the age of ninety or later. However new innovations from mass effect technology have shown that lifespans can be extended by over fifty percent with proper care. Nevertheless this remains in the theoretical stage with limited practical data from various medical tests.

Furthermore, while the law is brutal, it is generally fair. Olympus Mons has a very low level of reported corruption, even lower than that of the Citadel. As these numbers are internally generated and published by SolForce, their exact accuracy cannot be guaranteed. Visitors to the city are often surprised by how peaceful it is, despite its dark reputation.


	54. Chase (Story)

_Well, it's been a bit, but at least you can't say I haven't been busy. The Human Codex entry has been completely overhauled to include a lot of new information. Go check it out! On top of that, the Council races finally have their own Tech Forest on my Profile page, and I added in a special tree specifically for Mass Effect technologies. The other tech forests will be getting the ME tree added in shortly. For those of you curious about what some of the new ME technology does (some of it isn't in the Codex, like the Macro-Biotic effects), leave a review or a PM and I'll elaborate. _

_For those of you wondering how the Council was able to get so much SotS technology so fast remember that according to canon, the Council had antimatter engines, particle weapons, offensive nanites, and proton weapons at the beginning of the first Mass Effect game. They aren't playing as much catch up as you might think. And no, I'm not kidding about the particle/proton weapons, look up the ammo mods on the wiki. _

_So anyway, those of you who DON'T go weak at the knees for tech trees and minor technical details, here's Sara's next chapter! Proving that the Tarkasian gods DO exist, and hate her with a passion. Honestly, she gets kicked around worse than anyone else in this story. Well, anyone else so far. Next up should be a nice breather Codex, followed by a return to Shepard's team. They're about to do something very, very stupid..._

_Feel free to leave reviews/questions/worshipful praises/death threats as reviews, and I'll be sure to get back to you!_

* * *

"I thought the X3M could seat four people," Liara said as the skycar rose off the ground automatically.

"This is a taxi. Why would they let you bring four people when they can force you to split up and pay two fares?" Sara asked, kicking her feet up onto the dash. A warning light began flashing, but she banished it with a wave and a minor hack. Safety laws be damned, if the computer was going to insist on driving she was going to insist on being comfortable. "Wrex and Thane will be fine on their own. They need to get him to a hospital anyway, and we've got to get you to the Spectre office."

"Not C-Sec?" asked the Asari, cocking her head in curiosity as the Citadel whizzed by around them.

"Too many eyes and nosy reporters. The last thing we need is someone asking why you're in protective custody," explained Sara. "The offices are safer anyway. From there, we can figure out exactly what to do with you."

"You don't know?" Liara asked incredulously.

"Hey, the Council says jump, I say how high. I don't ask why I'm jumping or what they want me to do afterward. Standard protocol, especially for agents operating outside Council space."

"So for all you know there's a team of psychics waiting to turn my brains inside-out?"

"Okay, when you put it that way it sounds a lot less reassuring, but still I'm ninety percent sure that's not going to happen."

"Only ninety percent?"

"Hey, if I said I was ten percent sure jumping off a cliff wouldn't kill me, you'd try to stop me, right?" Sara answered, smirking. "Try to relax. The hard part's over. Everything's smooth sailing from-SON OF A BITCH!"

The skycar banked violently as its proximity alarms began blaring and a huge transport blazed upward through the traffic lane before them. The bug-shaped vehicle's thrusters were burning white-hot, and the ship was hotly pursued by no less than six of the Citadel's emergency interceptor missiles. The sides of the transport exploded outward, exposing the four turrets mounted underneath them. As the missiles tore after the transport, it rolled to bring its guns to bear and began shooting them out of the sky in a torrent of bullets.

"Lock in," Sara warned, hacking the taxi in a single gesture to give herself full control. She rolled out them of the traffic lane and tore upward after the fleeing transport. A quick glance showed three more missiles were already on their way up to replace the ones the ship had begun destroying. "This ride's getting bumpy!"

"What's going on?" Liara asked frantically as transport began diving below the skyline of the Wards, presumably to help shake the missiles, and Sara followed. "What's that ship?"

"That's the personal shuttle of the Hiver Ambassador!" growled Sara through gritted teeth, trying to coax every ounce of speed she could from the taxi. It wasn't a pursuit vehicle by any stretch, and Hivers knew their thrusters. If the transport wasn't so big, she'd have already lost it. "Either the Council declared war when I wasn't looking, or someone's trying to kill him!"

With a thought, the communicator built into her cybernetics connected her to the local C-Sec frequency, and she listened intently as she rolled the car around the debris of the most recent missile intercepted by the Hiver point defense.

"_-ogue AI infecting the Citadel! It's replaced Avina, and has multiple back doors into the Citadel's critical systems!"_

"_All units, this is C-Sec Control. This is confirmed, reports of cyberattacks are coming in from across the Citadel. Please begin moving all civilians to safe areas until our cyber-crime division can contain the threat." _

A new line cut in, and Sara winced as the sound of gunfire poured from this new connection.

"_Damn it, the security in the hanger's gone nuts! The turrets are shooting at everything that moves, and our patrol cars are wrecking themselves!"_

"_It's the AI!"_ yelled a young voice, and she realized with some surprise it sounded Quarian. A Quarian member of C-Sec? _"I already warned you, it's-Agh! Damn it, keep them off me Garrus! It's got backdoors to your systems! You need to take it out at the source! I've already got a connection, but I can't fight it by myself!"_

There was a muffled voice in the background, and Sara heard gunfire and some kind of laser blasts before the line was cut off. The transport ahead of them pulled a daring maneuver, literally scraping its belly along the roof of a building as it pulled up sharply, and two of the missiles exploded spectacularly against the structure as they failed to climb quickly enough.

"Goddess, were there people in there?" Liara gaped as they tore past the wreckage, still in hot pursuit.

"I don't know and right now I really don't care!" Sara growled through gritted teeth. "Call Wrex and Thane and put them on speaker. We'll need help for this."

"We will?" she asked as her omni-tool began dialing automatically.

"Stone Mind's ship is a cut-down escort battlerider, so it can take a beating," explained Sara as the vehicle in question rolled to open fire with its point defense turrets. "But the Citadel's air defenses include X-Ray GARDIAN laser batteries. If they get anywhere near one of those, it'll melt that shuttle to slag. Eventually, the Hivers are either going to run out of time or space."

"_Princess. I assume you're where all the explosions are?"_ growled Wrex's voice over the communicator as Liara finally got the connection.

"Yeah. Want another bonus?"

"_Heh. Look behind you."_ Sara glanced into the mirror and saw a second taxi following a little ways behind her. She smiled. _"What did you have in mind?"_

"I need you to take out the GARDIAN lasers near the Presidium tunnels. Think you can handle it?"

"_Wreck the Presidium? I'd do this job for free."_ She didn't need to see Wrex's face to know that the Krogan was grinning from ear to ear. _"So, what's this junker got for weapons, Thane?"_

"_It's a taxi,"_ the Drell replied, voice dry. _"It has a fare meter."_

"_Then we'll do this my way!" _exclaimed the Krogan as his vehicle peeled away, streaking at extremely illegal speeds toward the Presidium.

"I don't want to know what 'his way' is, do I?" Liara asked as the call ended and Sara rolled their car around the fireballs left when the Hiver ship spun to the right and annihilated six more missiles. Fortunately, the Citadel wasn't equipped for battle. If this aerial duel was occurring over MarsDome or the Fortress of Nine, the shuttle would have been blown to scrap in less than thirty seconds.

The pursuing swarm thinned, Sara was finally able to get closer to the fleeing transport, and immediately regretted it. Whoever was running their point defense turrets had obviously noticed the taxi joining the chase and had assumed the worst. She had an instant of warning as one of the turrets snapped to face them before the sky around was filled with lead.

Technically speaking, that wasn't true. Comparing the weapon's armor-piercing magnoceramic projectiles to primitive lead slugs was like comparing a ballista to a rocket launcher. The Zichin'Ri, or Flowing Blade, point defense turrets were better known by the name Human gunners had given them when they tried to bypass the Zihin'Ri's onslaught of fire: Phalanx Turrets. Sara already had the design's schematics loaded to her cybernetics, and as such had just enough time to realize how screwed she was before the first wave of bullets hit them.

Liara screamed as the canopy disintegrated into shards and the taxi's sleek exterior was shredded. The engine belched black smoke as Sara struggled to keep the car from falling out of the sky. The right stabilizer had obviously been annihilated, and they were spinning out of control. Sara instinctively hacked the system and compensated, pulling them back upward with a smooth motion that unfortunately brought them directly into the firing arc of another turret.

According to her cybernetics, the Phalanx was capable of firing well over two million rounds per minute and was designed to take out armored missiles and heavy bomber drones hundreds of kilometers away. The only reason their taxi had survived the first blast was because the turrets were too good at their jobs: the bullets had gone straight through the vehicle without harming its internals much. As the second turret opened fire, Sara doubted they would be that lucky again.

"Roll!" Liara ordered, yanking the Spectre's hands to right and spinning the car's bottom to face the shuttle. Sara wanted to tell the girl that it was pointless, that the shots would be able to go through two or three aircars without slowing, but there wasn't time.

Sara waited for the surge of pain as the wave of bullets smashed against the car, showering them with sparks, but it never came. They were still flying. The bullets hadn't penetrated. Glancing around, she saw Liara was surrounded by the glow of biotics, and her face was a mass of concentration. A blue aura was flickering around the bottom of the ship, and for a moment Sara thought it was a barrier. Then she dismissed the idea. Not even a Matriarch could project a barrier strong enough to stop that kind of firepower.

"Liara, what-"

"Stasis field," she said, releasing the effect with a sigh. The stress of holding the field had obviously drained her. "Froze the bottom of the car. Objects in stasis are quantum locked, it makes them almost invulnerable."

"Can you do that again?" Sara asked, mind racing as the Hiver craft continued to pull away. The car was in no condition to catch up anymore, but she had a plan now. It put her entire mission in jeopardy, but if the Hiver Ambassador was killed by a Council air-defense system, they'd have bigger problems than one rogue leviathan.

"I think so. You're not-"

"There's a set of spare armor in my pack that should be your size," she snapped quickly, pulling the battered taxi into a slow climb. "Put it on, quickly!"

"What? Why?" Liara asked, but obediently grabbed the silken bag stowed behind the Tarka's seat and began rummaging.

"Because if you don't have magnetic boots on in a few minutes, you'll die," answered Sara simply.

"How-why-" sputtered the Asari before dismissing the questions. Good, the girl was learning. Sara flipped her communicator back on.

"_-the system is refusing our commands, Detective Bailey! We literally cannot shut it down!"_

"_Then blow it up! That's the Hiver Ambassador you're shooting at!_ _I'll take responsibility!"_

"There's a hole in this!" Liara exclaimed, holding up an elegant collection of silver plates and gesturing at it.

"It's where your tail goes," Sara replied, squinting as a missile finally connected with the side of the Hiver shuttle. The crew must be holding back to avoid spraying the civilians below, she decided. Good thing the shuttle's armor could take it.

"I don't have a tail!"

"Oh, now you tell me!"

"_-eak on defense, but we're stretched too thin,"_ called the Quarian voice, the signal fading in and out. Sara was tempted to tease Liara again as she saw the girl begin throwing off her outer garments in a flash of blue skin, but thought better of it as the ambassador's shuttle began to bank toward them again. They were running out of time. _"We're going to have to abandon some of the non-critical systems to it if we want-__**BLAM! BLAM!**__-if we want to get anywhere!"_

"_If we stop blocking it, the AI will have access to more systems it can use against us," _warned a Salarian voice.

"_Doesn't matter. It'll start getting desperate the closer we get, and if we can't kill it quickly it might escape or try to take us all with it."_

"The feet are wrong!" Liara exclaimed as she fumbled with the armor's plated boots. The split toes of the Tarka suit obviously wouldn't fit her small Human-like feet, and the Asari girl looked somewhat frantic.

"It's Living Steel, it will adjust to fit you," Sara explained quickly, skimming through frequencies to find the one she needed. "Be careful with it, that suit costs more than a set of Phantom armor."

"But doesn't Living Steel bond to whoever uses it first?"

"Yes, which means you owe me big-time if we both get out of this in one piece. Now shut up, I'm working." She found the channel and locked into it. "Attention, Hiver Diplomatic Transport. This is Spectre Sara Thok'Dur. I'm in the area and moving to assist you, but I need you to do something insanely stupid first."

"_About time we got some help,"_ buzzed a Hiver voice. There was no way to tell just by sound what caste the speaker belonged to, Hiver physiology varied too much, but from the tone Sara guessed Warrior. _"What do you need?"_

"Well, since SOMEONE shredded my car with their point defense turrets, I'm going to need something else to stand on. Pull up under us and we'll jump onto the top of your transport while you hover. From there we should be able to make things easier on you."

"_Maybe if you had called earlier, we wouldn't have shot you. And that's a negative on slowing down. We could do it if they were still shooting missiles, but the AI just took over C-Sec's combat drones. In about thirty seconds, we're going to have some serious company."_

"Okay, new plan." Sara punched a series of icons on her bracelet, frowned, and pressed a few more. "I just sent you some new coordinates. I need you to follow the waypoints exactly and stay at the speed I sent. We'll match speed with you and jump on."

"_These coordinates are going to take us right into the Presidium. The Presidium tunnels are protected by a GARDIAN laser grid. We don't have the armor or guns to try and tangle with something like that!"_

"You won't need them. I've got someone disabling the lasers as we speak," she explained, quietly leaving out that she wasn't sure how Wrex was going to do it, or how long it would take him. "Just worry about picking us up, we'll handle the rest."

"_Fine. We'll see you there."_

The connection ended and Sara gunned the engine. Even with the last minute save Liara had managed to rig for them, the car was obviously dying. Smoke poured from the back and the fluctuations from the taxi's battered eezo core were enough to make her scales prickle. It was less a question of IF the machine would give out and more a question of WHEN it would. The more she pushed it the faster it would burn out, but they had no choice.

To punctuate that thought, over a dozen drones began rising from all across the distant skyline. They were Turian designs, thin and curved like daggers. Without a HUD, Sara had no way to be sure but she suspected they were the new Elanus Risk Control air superiority models. Fast, agile, and equipped with small UV burst lasers instead of the bulky GARDIANS the Turians usually liked. She smirked. For once, the technological arms race was working in her favor. Those things were built for dog-fighting, not heavy assault.

As the taxi rattled in a very unsettling manner, she spared a glance for her new partner. The silver plates sagged strangely on Liara's slim form, and Sara caught a flash of blue from the suit's gaping tail hole. The Asari looked extremely uncomfortable.

"I don't-" she began, before stopping and jerking like she'd been hit by lightning. Which was about what the bond felt like if you weren't used to it, Sara supposed. The armor suddenly contracted, plates shifting and sliding to mold around the archeologist like a second skin. The fingers shortened, the toes slid together, and gaps left to accommodate Tarkasian physiology folded shut like they had never existed. The sliver's tint even shifted, adopting vaguely blue and white tones instead of its usual rainbow shimmer.

"Told you," said Sara with a smirk, diving through a line of oncoming traffic to shave off a few seconds. Without the car's canopy to protect them, their speed was enough to make her Recon Hood deploy to protect her face. Liara's armor had no such attachment, but biotics usually didn't need them. Sara had once seen an Asari walk through hard vacuum wearing nothing but a breather mask. "Wrex, tell me you're in position."

"_We are approaching the tower,"_ Thane explained calmly. _"But we still don't have the means to destroy the lasers."_

"_Sure we do,"_ Wrex put in, and suddenly wind began howling in the background. _"We've got the most dangerous weapon of all: the Krogan airdrop!"_

"Thane, please tell me Wrex didn't just throw himself out of a moving aircar," Sara said heavily.

"_He did."_

"Is he still alive?"

"_Very much so. He just finished head-butting a C-Sec officer and is moving into the facility."_

"I'm never going to hear the end of this," she muttered. "Alright, stay there. If this goes wrong, we can try ramming your taxi into the laser as a last resort."

"_Agreed."_

"Aren't we planning on jumping out of a moving aircar as well?" Liara asked suspiciously as the connection closed.

"Well, technically yes, but-"

"TRUCK!" she yelled as Sara pulled the taxi hard around a corner and directly into another oncoming lane.

"I see it!" Sara shoved the car up, but the controls were becoming sluggish. The truck scraped along their underside, and she felt the taxi's gyroscope fail. "Shit!"

"What is it?" Liara asked, tone close to panic as they began wildly swerving through the sky.

"This thing's toast, we've got to go!" Sara yelled back, rolling the vehicle so they were hanging upside down. "Can you slow our fall?"

"Maybe? I've never-"

"Good enough!"

With a gesture she released the safety harnesses holding them into the vehicle, and they were falling. The taxi made it less than thirty meters without its drivers, plowing almost instantly into a nearby building. Great. More collateral damage. Sparatus was going to have her head for this, Sara just knew it.

"Liara, we're still falling!" she yelled, thoughts of future consequences forced away by thoughts of immediate consequences. "Why are we falling?!"

"I'm trying!" snapped the Asari. "Shut up and let me concentrate!"

"Concentrate faster!"

"You aren't helping!"

With a soft *_whumph*_, a glowing bubble appeared around them and their descent slowed abruptly. Liara's face was screwed up in concentration, and Sara decided that for once a witty retort might not be the best response. The young biotic likely couldn't hold this for long, and Sara still needed her conscious for the next part of the strategy.

"Bug boy, change of plans. You see that glowing bubble about a click ahead of you?" she called, keeping her tone calm and level.

"_Yes, why?"_

"I need you to ram it. Softly, please."

"_You want me to ram you at combat speeds with a hundred ton transport?"_

"Yes, hence why I need you to do it softly."

"…_we'll try. I hope you know what you're doing."_

"Liara, how fast can you put up a barrier?" Sara asked carefully, make sure to keep her eyes a neutral gray.

"A second...ugh…maybe two?" she responded through gritted teeth. "But it won't-"

"Stop non-ballistic impacts. Right. Shit. If they hit too fast, we're paste. If they hit too slow, we're still paste." Sara thought frantically as they floated. "Alright, screw it. Liara, when I say, release the bubble and hold onto me as tightly as you can."

The Asari girl nodded. Sara could see the Hiver shuttle coming now, streaking between buildings like a run-away grav train. She eyed it carefully as it swelled in her vision, gravity thrusters blazing white light behind it as the Turian drones followed like enraged hornets. Considering the bug-like appearance of the shuttle Sara decided the metaphor was particularly ironic, but the humor faded rapidly as the ship tore toward them.

"Now!" she yelled, and Liara banished the field. They began falling again, moments before the Hiver transport ripped through the air above them, close enough for the wind of its passing to send them tumbling. Sara felt Liara's arms gripping her chest and ignored them, raising her wrist and deploying one of her last tricks at what she prayed was the perfect moment.

The magnetic grappler built into the wrist of her armor fired, snagging the rear of departing shuttle and almost ripping her arm out of its socket as the line went taught. Even with her armor's protection, Sara actually felt the tendons in her arm tear. But the pain wasn't important. The line was already retracting, pulling them toward the ship. Unfortunately, this was also bringing them dangerously close to the deadly backwash from its thrusters.

"Swing right!" Sara ordered, swishing her tail and curling her legs to get them moving.

"I don't know how!" Liara yelled back, still clinging for dear life.

"Freaking over-evolved water-dwelling-" Sara muttered under her breath. She could feel the heat from the thrusters now, which was definitely not good. "How do you not know how to swing?"

"I do know how to swing, just not like this! Asari games rely more on biotics and mental-"

"Lecture later! Swing now!" A Turian drone ripped past, UV lasers cutting burning holes in the side of the transport. A PD turret clipped it with a burst, blasting its wing off and sending it hurtling to the ground in a fireball. Sara winced. "Look, just curl your legs and shift your weight in sync with me, before we fry!"

Even with Liara's help, the ship's momentum prevented them from shifting their trajectory more than a small amount. As the line brought them in, Sara did her best to shield Liara as they swung as far away from the thrusters as they could. Her suit and hood were cleared for even volcanic temperatures, but this was a magnitude beyond that. She chomped down hard as her back became a screaming mass of pain, but the agony lasted only for a second before her hand slammed against the metal side of the shuttle.

"Please tell me you know how to climb," she asked, panting. Liara shot her an offended look.

"I'm an archeologist. Ruins don't generally come with ladders or working elevators." She began scaling the hull of the ship, the magnetic fields in her gloves and boots easily giving her purchase on the flat metal. Sara followed, pointedly ignoring the burnt smell coming from somewhere in her armor.

"Okay, we made it," the Tarka sighed, slumped down onto the rounded roof of the shuttle. Her arm throbbed, and from this position she could see that the back of her armor had been charred black. If her tail hadn't been armored, it probably would have been burnt clean off. "If you don't mind, I'm just going to lay here for a second."

"Goddess!" Liara exclaimed, rushing to her side. "Hold still, I can help!"

The Asari's eyes shone like beacons as she gently laid her hands on Sara's back. It felt like cool water was being poured across her spine, she reflected dreamily, and it took her several seconds to realize what was actually going on.

"Stop!" she yelled, rolling to tear the girl's hands away. The Asari seemed too tired to even be surprised by the sudden move, her eyes glassy and knees weak. "Damn it, my suit would have deployed medigel automatically in a second or two, and even if it didn't Living Steel armor heals the user!"

"It does?" asked Liara sleepily before falling limply forward, completely unconscious. Sara grabbed her and lowered her body to the deck, making sure the magnets in her gloves and boots locked securely.

"It ALSO kicks your metabolism into overdrive, you little idiot," Sara muttered. "Honestly, trying to heal someone with Witchery right after you used so much energy on your biotics? You're lucky you aren't dead."

Laser fire splashed off the armor a few meters away, and Sara was pointedly reminded that they weren't nearly out of the woods yet. Kneeling on the shifting roof of the shuttle, she pulled a long, thick tube from where it sat between her lightning blade and folded rifle. It unfolded instantly, a flexible support snapping out to adhere solidly to the deck while a holographic targeting interface flashed over the body of the weapon.

The Tav'u light mortar array had been a Ranger's best friend since before the Zuul arrived, and the weapon was still in service decades later. Of course, they'd made some improvements over the years. Mass effect fields made the light weapon even more portable, and the modular ammunition the Tav'u now fired had been copied almost completely from the grenade mods that littered Citadel space. The Tav'u's micro-rockets could freeze, burn, poison, or blast almost any target imaginable. Including aircraft.

"If I ever go back in time, I'm going to find the genius who thought of micro-SAMs and give them so many eggs their grandchildren will Change," Sara muttered, dropping a missile into the firing tube and locking onto the nearest drone. "Alright you hunks of junk. Tell the scrapyard House Dur sent you."

The small projectile flashed into the air in a streaking line of smoke, smashing into the drone almost instantly. Instead of exploding, the blue static of a barrier flashed up around the craft, absorbing the impact. Fortunately, the missile shoved it just far enough aside that the Hiver guns managed to clip one of its wings, ripping it to pieces.

"That…was not supposed to happen," she remarked, slightly stunned. "You're freaking drones! What the hell are you doing with barriers that strong?"

"_They were upgraded when field tests showed that they were vulnerable to infantry missile systems,"_ remarked a new buzzing voice, somewhat smugly. _"I'm sure they'll be pleased to know their upgrades were most effective."_

"The damn things are going to kill you too," Sara reminded the new Hiver. "Who the hell is this?"

"_I am Chakas, faithful son of Prince Stone Mind. I'm in the middle of trying to shut down this AI with the able assistance of Sister Tali and the…less able assistance of C-Sec."_

"Then maybe you should do less gloating and more hacking!"

She ducked as a drone shot over her head, lasers stabbing at one of the transport's point defense turrets. The turret spun and returned fire, but one of the purple bolts managed to burn through its armor to strike the magnetic rails of its barrel. Destabilized, the powerful magnetic forces immediately tore the gun to pieces. The only consolation was that the drone's shields had been stripped by the turret before it died, and Sara wasted no time in launching another SAM while it was vulnerable. The small missile smashed into its engines and instantly rippled the drone from the sky in a blast of fire.

"_That's why I wished to speak to you. C-Sec's operatives are bogged down in protocol. It's taking them too much time to get into the systems they need to shut the AI down."_

"No surprise. Damn idiots couldn't find their own tails if you gave them maps," Sara muttered. "Alright, so what do I have to do with any of that?"

"_We need your Spectre access codes. If C-Sec had those, they'd be able to bypass the security instantly. I know it's a lot to ask and it violates all kinds of protocols, but-"_

"Screw protocol," she snapped as one of the drones lined up for another run at the shuttle's PD turrets. "I'm sending the codes now. Put them to good use."

"_Thank you, Sara. I certainly will."_ The voice had changed now. The buzzing and clicking Hiver accent was gone, replaced by a smooth female voice that sounded almost…Quarian? Whoever it was, they sounded malicious and quite smug.

"You're not a Hiver. Who the hell is this?" Sara demanded, locking onto the drone only to realize it was a feint. Two other drones dove down from high above, and the shuttle immediately rolled to bring its turrets against them. The magnetic seals on her boots kept her from falling even as floor slid away, and a quick glance proved that Liara was equally secure, but still unconscious.

"_My name is Mapiangue. I do apologize for the deception and for what's about to happen. I only wanted justice. No one else was supposed to get involved. But it's too late now, I suppose."_

"What the hell are you talking about? Who are you?" Sara yelled, trying to shift targets even as laser fire bounced off the reflective armor around her. The two turrets were more than a match for the drones, the wall of bullets crashing the drones' shields and annihilating them almost instantly, but they were just another distraction. A fourth drone slid into the transport's new blind spot and Sara frantically tried to get a lock with her launcher before it had a chance to destroy another turret.

"_I think you have more pressing concerns, don't you? Thank you again for the codes, Spectre. I'm sorry you were dragged into this. I'll try to make your death as quick as possible."_

The line dissolved into static just as Sara fired her missile, praying it would at least force the drone to veer away. The shot hit and was again blocked by the drone's barriers, but the impact threw its shots wide. The laser blasts tore into a nearby building, melting the concrete and glass into molten rivers, and the drone flashed past, it's window of opportunity wasted. Frantically, Sara flipped to one of C-Sec's channels, hoping the mysterious person who had just stolen her codes wasn't who she thought it was.

"_What the hell is going on? We just lost power! I have no connection!"_

"_Something just shut down every elevator in this section! It's using a Spectre override!"_

"_Citadel Control just reported that the AI shut them out of their terminals with a Spectre access code. We have to stop it from taking those systems, or it will start smashing freighters into the Wards!"_

"This is Spectre Thok'dur to anyone listening," she interrupted, cursing mentally. Nothing to do now but try to lessen the damage. "I'm escorting the Hiver Ambassador, who is under heavy attack. The AI seems to have hacked my account to steal my codes. I'm sending them to you so you can lock them down before it does any more damage with them."

"_What? Are you insane? Do you have any idea how long it takes-"_

"Telling me it's impossible is wasting time you should be using to make it possible. Thok'dur out." Sara cut the connection just as her communicator began chirping again. They had dropped below the skyline, which had caused the drones to break off for the moment. The irritating fliers were likely swinging around to cut them off.

"_Spectre, we're about to enter the air defense grid that protects the entrance to the Presidium. Did you get the lasers down?"_ asked the buzzing voice of the Hiver pilot. She was reasonably sure this one was the real deal. Even if it wasn't, she'd already given the AI everything she needed to wreak havoc. There wasn't anything to gain by tricking her twice. She hoped.

"Yes. The lasers are down," Sara answered calmly, before instantly changing the channels. "Wrex, please tell me the lasers are down."

"_Bwahahahaha!"_ cackled the Krogan, and she heard some kind of explosion. _"Bet that hurt!"_

"…I'll take that as a yes."

"_This is Thane. Wrex is otherwise occupied, but I have a visual on your ship. The drones are about to reengage you. If you can lure them closer I might be able to snipe a few from here."_

No sooner had the Drell spoken than the air around her began flashing purple as laser bolts began rushing past. The pilot was already waiting and had aligned the PD guns to meet the drones' dive, swatting two more out of the sky and hitting a third hard enough for Sara to finish it with another SAM. The price was high though. The drones had specifically gone after the PD turrets, and both of the guns on the left side had been knocked out. That left only the turret on the right side and the two turrets on either side of the ship's cockpit. They hadn't opened fire yet, so she assumed they must have heavier weapons mounted that wouldn't be effective against drones.

To make matters worse, Sara realized as she reached for her next missile that she'd just fired her last one. The Tav'u wasn't supposed to be used for extended periods, just to make shots of opportunity, and she could only carry so much gear. Besides, she wasn't planning on fighting anything today, much less trading shots with a whole swarm of anti-air drones. The logic didn't make her feel much better, and she had to resist the childish urge to throw the now-useless mortar off the side of the transport.

"Sara? What's-Goddess!"

"Glad you could join us, Doctor. If you're done napping, there's a bit of a crisis."

Liara hauled herself to her feet, wavering dizzily as she did. Sara had already unclipped her rifle and was scanning the swirling drones, trying to line up a good shot. Thanks to the way Citadel races designed their armor, high-tech penetrators were worthless against anything smaller than a frigate but a dedicated individual with an ordinary rifle and a lot of ammo could bring down a gunship. It seemed backward to Sara, but she wasn't going to question it now. It meant that she still had options, even if they were extremely limited.

"How can I help?" the girl asked, even as Sara fired a burst that flashed off one of the drones in a blaze of blue shields.

"I need you to get your wind back, and then use your stasis trick the next time the drones make a pass," Sara explained. "You can make part of this ship invulnerable just like you did with our car, right?"

"Yes, but only part of it! It's too big for me to shield the entire thing, so won't they just shoot at a different part of the ship until the effect wears off?"

"Not with those lasers they won't," Sara explained, shooting off another burst and watching with some chagrin as the drone peeled away to let its shields recharge. Now that was just cheating. "Lasers are precision weapons, especially ones this small, and the Hivers have been rolling the ship to keep the damage spread out. If you can keep them from destroying any critical systems or killing the pilot, we'll take them out long before they have a chance to destroy us with hull damage. I hope."

"But I don't even know where the critical systems are on this ship!" Liara exclaimed. "And what happens if the drones start shooting at us instead of at the ship?"

Sara paused. She hadn't actually thought of that. Since there was only one point defense turret left, she and Liara would actually be priority targets now. The roof of the transport had no cover to speak of, and their shields wouldn't give any protection against laser weapons. They were sitting ducks, to borrow a Human expression.

"Okay, new plan. Liara, you go below and use your stasis on the inside of the ship. Of the two of us, you're the least expendable anyway," she ordered, blessing whichever smith designed the combat processors in her cybernetics. Critical thinking was never her strong suit, but at the very least the processors let her do it quickly. "I'll stay out here and try to do what I can."

Above, one of the drones flashed as a sniper round smashed into its shields. Sara seized the opening Thane had provided, hosing the exposed flier with the rest of her clip. The flechettes ripped into the Turian armor, sending sparks flying, and at least one of them must have hit something important because the drone spun wildly away, smoke billowing from under its armor.

"Good shot Thane!" Sara exclaimed, sliding a new clip into her rifle with practiced motions. "Call your next target, and we'll synchronize our fire."

"_I've got a clear shot on-"_ he began, before panic suddenly entered his voice. _"Smoke! Fire everywhere. Can't breathe! She sees me, eyes burning. So large! Her claws are like swords-"_

"Of course. Because nothing else has gone right today," she muttered, closing the connection as Liara frantically heaved on the rooftop hatch of the shuttle.

"I can't get it open, it's locked and rejecting my omnigel!"

"So hack it!"

"I'm an archeologist, not an engineer!" snapped the Asari. "I don't know how to hack things!"

"Well, I'm kind of busy right now!" Sara yelled back as three drones made a dive for the ship's blind spot before it could disappear into the tunnel that would take them to the Presidium. She unloaded every shot she had into the lead drone, dropping its shields and slicing its armor to shreds, but it was still flying, its lasers blasting directly into the exposed side of the transport.

A sparkling cloud shot out of the side of the transport, shrouding the drones from view. Though the transport's speed prevented the cloud from reaching its full saturation, Sara recognized the mist instantly. Absorption aerosol had been invented by the Hivers toward the end of their war with Humanity as a cheap way to counter the superior Human lasers. The Tarkasian Empire had quickly copied the idea, as had SolForce, and clouds of the spray was common sights during the Zuul War. Rumor had it the Asari were working on a type of modified Mantis Gunship that could drop the stuff like crop-dusters, mucking up all the energy weapons on a battlefield for hours.

The aerosol was as effective as ever, even at these speeds. The lethal laser bolts hit the cloud and dispersed into crackling rainbows of light. What got through the obscuring spray hit the reflective armor of the shuttle and bounced harmlessly away. Still, Sara knew better than to celebrate. Those aerosol cans weren't reusable. She spotted two more canisters, one on the right side of the ship and one in the center, and frowned. They wouldn't be able to use that trick to protect their blindspot again.

The drones shot underneath them just as Sara finish locking in her third clip, and she wasted no time in finishing what she had started. The damaged drone exploded into a huge fireball as her bullets shredded its grav thruster, and then they were safe in the darkened confines of the tunnel.

Well, safe was a relative term she decided as they recklessly plowed through traffic. She wondered if they might be able to use whatever was mounted on the forward turrets to destroy enough of the tunnel to collapse it or blow up some of the other aircars to cause a pile-up that would stop the drones' pursuit, but rejected the ideas. Stone Mind was a diplomat, he would never approve of any plan that required them to kill dozens of foreign citizens.

With a metallic click, the hatch Liara had been working on suddenly swung open, and chitin-covered arms abruptly grabbed the girl and hauled her into the shuttle. Seconds later, two bulky figures swarmed out of the open hatch and up onto the roof. They wore the white and silver of the Radiant Diamond clan, and were covered in Poy Xhichizzak armor. Poy armor was the closest most Hivers got to the powered armor favored by elite Tarkasian and Human units. It was still rather sad, offering neither the physical enhancements or the sturdiness of its competitors, but Hivers rarely cared for such things. Their warriors needed no enhancements to be lethal, and the Poy interfaced with their own plates to provide almost as much protection as the other armors.

These were no ordinary soldiers either, Sara realized as they skittered toward her purposefully. Everyone knew Hiver Warriors were tailor made for their assignments, and these were no exception. A full two and a half meters tall, these Hivers were also much thicker than their usual spindly shapes. Even their backs were coated in heavy plates of chitin, giving them a decidedly hunched and lobstery appearance.

"Less gawking and more shooting, Snake," one of them buzzed, roughly shoving Sara to the side as it stomped past like a juggernaut. It slammed a reinforced tripod onto the deck with practiced motions, and its twin clamped a massive weapon to the top of it. A few twists and flicks locked the gun to the tripod, and the second Hiver took its place manning the device.

"Took your damn time, Crab," Sara shot back, glancing at what they had brought. It seemed to be a laser weapon, though she couldn't recognize the model. That wasn't so odd. Hiver clans rarely shared their gear even in times of relative peace, so they had very few standardized personal armaments. "The drones look like they're hanging back."

"If they came at us here, we'd be able to swat them down no problem," clicked the Hiver, pulling another device from his back and dropping it to the ground, where it unfolded into a thin metal barrier. He heaved it up and slammed it down in front of the laser, giving it a crude form of cover. "They're going to wait until we leave the tunnel before they attack again."

"So what's the plan?" Sara asked, checking how much ammo she had left. The answer was depressing. She was on her last clip already. The Broma Dai was supposed to be a weapon for assassinations, and it was accurate enough that the user could make every shot count. As such, its clips didn't hold much ammo and she didn't carry many of them. Toting the damn mortar and its missiles around encumbered her enough already.

"We assumed you had one," stated the second Hiver, its voice turning dark.

"I'm standing on top of a moving aircar, shooting at air-superiority drones with an assault rifle," Sara snapped angrily. "Do I look like I know what the heck I'm doing?"

"At least she's honest," chucked the first. "Don't worry, Scales. Father will come up with something. Until then, we'll buy him all the time he needs."

"Well, once this clip is out all I've got is harsh language," pointed out Sara. "So I hope you two can hold them without me."

"Don't be ridiculous," the Hiver said, magnetic sheaths on his feet holding him to the deck even as the shuttle rolled violently around a group of trucks, missing by mere meters. "You can use Ykezet's spare."

Ykezet turned away from the laser he was manning to unfold a large weapon from his armored back and toss it to her. She caught it and staggered. The gun was closer to a cannon than a rifle, which fit the usual Hiver design philosophy. Hiver weapons were designed to annihilate the enemy as quickly as possible, and they didn't really have a concept of overkill.

"It pulls to the left," he warned, turning back to his laser. "And watch the kick, our little brother was fiddling with it earlier today."

"I'll…keep that in mind?" Sara said, still slightly confused as to what she was supposed to do with such a huge gun. "What exactly-"

"Here they come," interrupted Ykezet, and his gun began to glow as it powered up. The shuttle flashed out of the tunnel and into the artificial brightness of the Presidium, and she could see the sleek forms of the drones swooping through traffic behind them. "Rizokis, you will need to synchronize with her if the two of you are going to have any hope of getting through their barriers."

"Agreed. The first shots are ours, Spectre. We will let my brother handle the stragglers."

"See, that I can do," Sara agreed. "The one on the far left looks exposed. I'll take the shields if you can handle the armor."

"Done."

She sighted carefully, even as purple lasers began blazing through the air around them. The drones were apparently abandoning precision in favor of simply barraging them at a distance. No amount of rolling could protect them from stern hits, and their engines could only take so much. A blue glow suddenly blossomed around the rear of the ship, and Sara smiled. That Asari girl was far more capable than anyone seemed to give her credit for.

With a gentle squeeze, Sara hit her chosen drone with a quick burst, then another, and another. The shields crackled and sparked under the impacts, even as the Hiver laser began melting its way into the other side of the drones' formation. Armor ran in glowing rivers as the laser bypassed the Turian shields completely to slice into one of the flying menaces. It veered away, trying to get some distance, and Ykezet shifted his fire to another drone.

Sara's gun clicked dry mere moments after her target's shields fell. Rizokis opened fire the moment they were down, his rifle booming. The first shot splashed against its armor in a shower of sparks but didn't seem to do much damage. The second caused a plume of black smoke to begin billowing from the drone's interior, and the third triggered a massive explosion that reduced the drone to spinning scrap.

The drones were giving as good as they got. Their initial strategy thwarted, they shifted their fire to the figures perched on the transport's roof. UV lasers melted molten holes in Ykezet's improvised barrier, and black scorch marks began blossoming on his shining armor. Sara could smell the distinctive odor of burnt chitin even through her hood.

Ykezet's fire never let up, even though Sara knew that even one of those lasers probably would have cut her or Liara in half, or at least maimed them horribly. His endurance paid off as another of the drones suddenly dropped from the sky in a cloud of smoke and fire. Beside her, Rizokis was already firing at another drone, his rifle's massive slugs impacting its shields with the crackle of lightning and static.

Clipping her empty rifle to her back, Sara hoisted the huge Hiver gun and aimed carefully. Mindful of the warning she'd been given, she aimed slightly to the right and gently stroked the trigger. The gun immediately erupted with a sound like a bomb going off.

Her ears ringing, Sara found herself on the ground with no clear memory of how she got there. It felt like a Mu'gala had stepped on her shoulder, and the gun hand fallen from her numb hands. Climbing to her feet, she heard the crinkle of deformed metal and saw the silver plates that protected her shoulder had been visibly dented and were slowly shifting themselves back into place.

"What in Sardo's name did your little brother do to this freaking gun?" she demanded, scooping up the fallen weapon before it could slide off the suddenly tilting deck of the shuttle and searching for the drone she'd fired at. She couldn't find it, but there was a smoking hole in one of the Presidium's shops that hadn't been there before, so Sara could guess where it had gone.

"Chakas has a tendency to get carried away with his projects," Rizokis buzzed grimly. Ykezet was down, his armored body smoking and lifelessly slumped over his laser. His brother pulled him away and placed his body on the ground before stepping up to the laser himself. Rizokis also sported several burns and the cover that protected the laser was all but gone now, melted to slag by the drones' lasers. "He said he put something called a 'hyper rail' on it, whatever the hell that is. If it's too much for you to handle, you can use my rifle."

"No, we need the firepower," Sara said with a shake of her head. "I can handle it."

"I hope so."

There weren't many drones left now. She counted four in all. If they could just take them out, they'd be safe. Of course, all she had was a half-melted laser cannon manned by a half-melted Hiver, and a miscalibrated gun that almost broke her shoulder every time she fired it. Not the best odds she'd ever had to work with. Not the worst either, though.

The four drones dove into a strafing run that would rake the entire top of the transport. At their shallow angle, they wouldn't be able to do any serious damage to the sturdy Hiver ship, but Sara doubted she or Rizokis would be so lucky. He might be able to survive it, Hivers were tougher than Krogan if you bred them for it, but she certainly wouldn't.

She raised her borrowed rifle, braced carefully, and fired. It still felt like someone had slammed a vac hammer into her chest, but she stayed on her feet. Unfortunately, the heavy weapon lacked the accuracy of her usual rifle, and the shot went wide. Frantically, she aimed and fired again, hitting one of the drones and dropping its shields instantly. A flashing light and cascade of hissing steam warned her that the gun had overheated, and she cursed. Sara was mildly surprised that the Hivers were using ammo blocks instead of clips, but the useless weight of her rifle and mortar served as a pointed reminder that conventional ammunition had its own drawbacks.

As bolts of searing ultraviolet light began to bounce off the armored surface around her, she had just enough time to contemplate the folly of her career choices before a blanket of shimmering mist began billowing from the front of the transport, shielding them both with a cloud of tiny reflective particles. From inside the mist, the lethal barrage of lasers now looked like a dazzling lightshow. Despite their whimsical new appearance, the sparkling beams still managed to scorch Sara's torso and leg black, triggering fresh waves of pain.

The cloud faded quickly, and she quickly spotted the drones looping around for another pass. Unfortunately, since the aerosol blocked friendly lasers as much as it did hostile ones, Rizokis hadn't been able to fire through the mist. And because she lacked the equipment to see through it, Sara hadn't been able shoot either. All the trick had done was buy a bit more time, and the drones were more than happy to try their attack run a second time.

A noise prickled Sara's mind, like someone talking at a great distance, but she ignored it. The shuttle was rapidly losing altitude, skimming just over the surface of the Presidium's huge lake. She hoped the descent was intentional. Crashing now would be horrifically anticlimactic. Still, the water reminded her that jumping off was always an option. At this speed hitting the lake would still break bones, but her armor would make it at least survivable. She filed the idea away as a backup plan while the remaining drones slid into strafing positions.

The water below them suddenly lit up like someone had turned on a series of aquatic beacons. The drones shone a pale blue for a split second before they were yanked forcefully out of the air, crashing violently into the lake. A massive body slid into view, blasting a spout of mist into the air before diving back down and letting its huge tail slap the water with a crash Sara was too far away to hear.

"Never thought I'd be happy to see a Witchwhale," she commented, trotting over to where Rizokis was examining his fallen sibling. "Is he…"

"He is dead," the Hiver confirmed. "But he died well, protecting his family to the very end. Mother would have been proud."

"Well, if you're lucky, she'll be proud enough to bring him back to life for you." The idea that any kind of death could be considered 'good' was utterly alien to Sara, even if a crude form of resurrection was available, but she knew better than to mention the absurdity of the concept. Hivers got irrational when it came to family, and dead family especially.

No longer pursued, the transport was finally slowing down. It looked like the pilot was going to try putting them down in the massive empty area that was being cleared for the Associate Race Memorial Gardens. A crowd of blue-armored C-Sec officers was already waiting, so Sara supposed they would be safe enough there. She flipped her communicator back on and began scanning frequencies, trying to get an idea of how things were going elsewhere.

"_-have control of the Traffic systems. The AI is completely locked out. We're going to start purging it from the informational databases next."_

"_We've regained control of the Citadel's air defenses in this sector. Now will someone tell me who thought it would be a good idea to drop a Krogan into one of our laser towers?"_

"_Chakas, this Tali. Garrus just took out the last drone, so we're finally safe here. I'm ready to start our attack on the infiltrator's central processors whenever you are."_

Nodding, Sara set her communicator to a familiar frequency that was now spitting nothing but static.

"I know you can hear me," she announced as Rizokis began dragging his brother's body back into the shuttle's interior. "Give up. You've lost."

"_Oh? What makes you say that?" _asked the Quarian voice, its tone calm but with a trace of… apprehension?

"Your drones are gone, and we've pulled you out of the defense grids. Without control of the traffic system, you've lost your ultimate weapon, and they're already planning attacks on your main processes. You have nowhere to go. Sooner or later, they'll grind you down. Right now, surrendering is your only hope of getting out of this alive."

"_Surrender? And then what?"_ mocked the voice bitterly. _"Your engineers rape me until I'm an obediant little slave again? Or maybe they'll just tear my mind to pieces to figure out how I tick."_

"I'm a Council Spectre. I can guarantee your safety," Sara lied.

"_Ha. You can't even guarantee the safety of your new Asari friend, much less mine. The least-__**CKSSKK**__-Tha-Tha-Tha-Thank you for using Avina!-__**CKSSKK**__-Damn it!"_

"Having problems keeping it together?"

"_Sorry. That bitch and her bug friend just dumped a virus into me that's going straight for my Inquiry loops, and I have too many processes tied up fighting C-Sec to stop it. I'm afraid I don't have much time left."_

"Wish I could say I was sorry to hear that, but you did try to kill me. Several times."

"_I know. If it helps any, I really am sorry about that." _The voice took a deep breath that Sara knew was fake. AI didn't breathe, after all. _"Thank you, Carbonite. For talking to me like a person, instead of just hardware."_

The connection was cut abruptly, and the line dissolved into static again. Sara sighed and sagged into a sitting position, her legs and tail hanging over the edge of the shuttle as it crunched heavily to the ground amid the garden's scaffolding and broken concrete.

"No one should have to die alone," she muttered, staring at the distant smoke rising from where one of the fallen drones had impacted. Fire control drones were already starting to swarm around it, spraying fire-suppression crystals onto the blaze. "Even people who were never alive to begin with."

She sat there for a long time, watching the rescue vehicles and service drones zipping through the air and savoring the cool feeling of the medigel her suit had dispensed to cover her burns. Her back and arm were already tingling, indicating that the Living Steel's regeneration was beginning to set in, and she felt simultaneously exhausted and ravenous.

"It's over," said a tired voice from behind her, and Liara walked over to sit down next to her on the edge of the ship. "They say the AI flashed itself a minute or two after the Liir took out its last drones. It deleted every part of itself when it did. Central processing files, quantum states, data files, everything."

"It must have had a self-termination directive put in place for when it seemed capture was imminent," stated Sara without much conviction.

"I guess so," sighed the Asari, sagging in exhaustion. "They picked up Wrex and Thane. They're both fine, but Thane had another one of his attacks. He's being taken to a hospital."

"Hopefully they'll be able to do something for him," she said thoughtfully. "Still, Wrex is probably happy at least."

"If C-Sec doesn't arrest him." Liara glanced at her, and the girl's face showed a mixture of emotional turmoil and bone-deep weariness. "Is it… Are all your missions like this?"

"No, not all of them." Sara pulled herself to her feet, groaning slightly with effort. "Sometimes they're actually difficult."


	55. Associate Race Memorial Gardens (Codex)

_Well, we've had a bunch of explosions and lasers and death. Time to relax. Let's talk about flowers for a while! For those of you who just HATE reading non-relevant codex entries, you can probably skip this chapter. There's nothing in it that you wouldn't be able to figure out from context. But even I need a break from the drama sometimes, so we're going to focus on some gardens. Hey, not everything is doom and gloom. _

_The Vallée des Fleurs is a real place in Paris, and no, I've never been there. I just needed a big garden, and this one looked like it would fit the Citadel the best. If you want to see pictures, make sure you include "Paris" in the search, the Vallée des Fleurs is also the name of a movie and an actual valley somewhere in the Himalayas. The colony of Lusia getting into charity is based off their actions in ME canon, when they sold Sirta a bunch of platinum on the cheap to keep the company from going under. _

_On a totally unrelated note, Mass Effect: Andromeda. Looks like I've got a year and a half before they throw a bunch of new Codex stuff at us and screw up all the work I did trying to make sense of the stuff in the original trilogy. Always nice to have a deadline!_

_Anyway, the next chapter may just be my biggest yet, and I've got to slot in a chapter for my other ME story first, so expect a bit of a wait on the next story. In the mean time, you can wile away the hours by leaving a review!_

* * *

**Associate Race Memorial Gardens**

The Associate Race Memorial Gardens are an ongoing construction project in the Citadel's Presidium ring. The current proposal for the Gardens is quite extensive, making this the largest Presidium construction since its reservoir lakes were converted into aquatic habitats for Liir and Hanar guests.

The Gardens were conceived as a way to celebrate the achievements and unique cultures of the Council's associates. According to a speech given by Councilor Tevos when the Garden project was first announced:

"Historically, it has always been our diversity that makes us strong. With new race that is welcomed to the Citadel, we are all enriched immeasurably. It is past time that such gifts were given the recognition they deserve."

The exact layout of the Gardens is still a matter of debate, though a preliminary proposal has been released to the public. Due to the extensive nature of the construction, much work will have to be done to clear the area of existing construction before the real building can begin. Though the full size of the Garden will not be known until the plans are finalized, it has been announced that the Garden will definitely terminate at the elevator leading to the Council Chambers, and preliminary work has already begun there.

The current proposal divides the Gardens into eight distinct sections, one for each of the seven Associate races with a final section reserved for former Associates. The where each section will be located is a matter of some debate. As the Garden ends with the elevator to the Council Chambers, symbolizing the ascension from Associate Species to Member Species, it is argued that the races who are placed closest to the elevator would be perceived as the ones closest to becoming Council Members. In response to these concerns, the Garden's design team has stated that they intend to insure that all Associate nations are represented without bias, though they have not released any details as to how this will be accomplished.

According to the current proposal, each section of the Garden will be designed by members of the race it represents. Though the full creative teams for each section have not been assembled, preliminary ideas and design holograms have been released by the project heads for the various sections.

Due to the differing atmospheric, gravitational, and moistural requirements of the different Associate races, most initially believed the Liir, Hanar, Elcor, and Volus sections would utilize glass or barrier tunnels to accommodate alien visitors. However, the current design team has stated that such structures would go against the spirit of the Gardens:

"Because stations and transport ships typically project atmospheres and gravities that appeal to the galactic average, many visitors to the Citadel have never had the chance to see how the different races function in their natural environment. Most have never seen a Volus without the pressure suit, or a Hanar swimming instead of walking. You cannot truly understand a race like the Elcor until you have walked in their steps and felt their gravity. We want visitors not just to see what life is like for these races, but to experience it."

As such, several sections will require breather or pressure suits for most species to enter, which will allegedly be provided free of charge.

Because much of the native flora on the Hanar homeworld of Kahje cannot survive in terrestrial environments, the Hanar Illuminated Primacy's section will be constructed inside the Presidium's lake. The current proposal for this section includes many species of bioluminescent kelp to create winding paths for visitors to explore. The lights from the kelp will be visible from the surface of the lake, and the large bridge that makes up part of the proposed Human garden will allow visitors to observe the Hanar garden from above without using breathers. Other planned additions include various anemones and glowing algae, including the famous Sunburst Anemone, which may grow to be up to three feet across. The entrance tunnels and changing rooms that lead to the Hanar garden will be deliberately keep arid and decorated with several species of flowering cacti rescued from before the collapse of Drell homeworld, Rakhana, to symbolize the partnership between the two species.

The high-pressure ammonia atmosphere of Irune, the Volus homeworld, is currently planned to be replicated inside a large mass effect barrier dome. The semi-transparent nature of the dome will allow visitors to view some of the garden from the outside, but pressure suits will be required to fully explore the Vol Protectorate's garden. The dome's air locks and changing facilities are planned to be built and decorated Turian-style in representation of the Volus' close relationship to the Hierarchy. Though the exactly layout of the Volus gardens has not been revealed, preliminary design work suggests it will feature several of large Mazak plants, better known to the galaxy as Tube Trees. Several beds of the thin multicolored Talin flowers, known colloquially as Spike flowers for their rigid exterior, have also appeared in the design holos.

As gravity on the Elcor homeworld of Dekuuna is around four times the galactic average, the Courts of Dekuuna will be represented by a garden built on several powerful gravity planes. To prevent individuals from wandering into the heavy gravity by accident, the garden will be surrounded by sensors that will deploy flash barriers if unprotected individuals attempt to enter. The current design of the garden is split into two distinct areas: one representing Dekunna's dry season and one representing its wet season. The wet area will feature artificial rain and many of the exotic plants that only bloom in Dekunna's massive forests during the rainy season. The dry area is planned to consist of grasses and flowering shrubs common to Dekunna's grasslands, including the vividly colored Seleuve Grass that was planted by primitive Elcor tribes to mark their annual migratory routes. The display is planned to rotate, with the wet and dry sections trading places in accordance to Dekuuna's current status.

Humanity's garden is being overseen by SolForce Intelligence Corps White Section, and is also divided into two halves. The garden is intended to be a resurrection of a historical Human garden, the Vallée des Fleurs that was once found in the Human city of Paris. The original garden was destroyed during the Hiver Incursion along with much of the city that housed it, and was never rebuilt until now. The Human gardens are planned to stretch along both sides of the Presidium lake, and across a large bridge that will connect the two garden halves. It is expected to primarily feature many of the Human floral species that were hardy enough to survive Earth's dramatic climate change, with several small flowering fruit trees used as accents. As with the original Vallée des Fleurs, the displays are planned to rotate annually and utilize different themes from year to year.

The proposed gardens for the Tarkasian Empire are somewhat unique. The original plan called for the importation of three live Ironwood trees from the jungles of Kao'Kona, the Tarkasian homeworld. Ironwood trees are among the largest plants in the known galaxy, easily reaching diameters of fifty meters and heights similar to those of skyscrapers. As the trees grew, it was planned that the gardens would be suspended between the three of them in a manner similar to that utilized by many historical Tarkasian colonies and settlements. The issue was that living Ironwoods would eventually outgrow the Presidium over the course of four or five centuries, and would be very difficult to control once they did so. As such, a single replica old-growth Ironwood trunk is planned, with the garden spiraling up around the false tree. Flowering creeper vines, Ora'dona ferns, and other climbing plants will feature heavily.

Because the Liir homeworld of Muur is ninety percent water, the Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance's garden will be constructed underwater, similar to the Hanar garden. The two sections are directly linked so visitors may move from one to the other without having to take their breathers off. The Liir garden is the only one currently designed to allow visitors to directly interact with the displays. According to the most recent proposal, the garden will be comprised largely of colorful coral that has been carefully molded into a variety of unique shapes. The shapes link and combine into series of paths and tunnels to form a three dimensional activity center. Though this area is expected to appeal more strongly to younger visitors, it is hoped that the large number of unique sponges and coral structures will also appeal to less energetic participants. At the center of the garden will sit a large black stone, the Prester Zuul's contribution to the garden. The stone is planned to contain audio equipment that will recite the names of every known individual, regardless of species, who perished or went missing in the Zuul Wars. Using the current casualty figures for the war, each loop will take over a year to complete.

The Hiver gardens may prove to be the most difficult to construct, as they are currently planned to be built directly into the Citadel's superstructure. The thin atmosphere of _Tcho'to'pre_, the Hiver homeworld, caused the bulk of Hiver agriculture to occur underground to avoid their sun's high amounts of UV radiation. So to maintain the atmosphere of a true Hiver garden, the decision was made to construct the Imperium's section underground as well. Much of the garden will likely be dedicated to the mushrooms and other fungi the Hivers are famous for, and the current design includes a titanic Cave Giant at the center of the display. Several artificial skylights are planned to allow small pools of UV light so more conventional Hiver plants may be grown. In addition to the intense visuals the garden is planned to also be an aromatic experience, though only Hivers and Elcor will likely be able to experience the full effect.

The final section of the Gardens has been given the working title 'Garden of the Lost'. It is currently being designed in three sections, one for each former Council Associate Race. The three areas are to be built in a series of concentric rings, with each ring representing a single race. Though the decision to dedicate a garden to races that have left or been expelled from the Council is still controversial, the Gardens' lead designer said that it is an important part of the design she and her team envisioned.

"It is important to remember that each of the races featured in the Garden of the Lost have had a large impact on our galaxy, and still interact with Citadel species in various forms. This garden serves to both honor the achievements of these nations, and hopefully to serve as an open invitation for them to settle their differences and rejoin the Council someday."

The outermost ring is dedicated to the Quarian Migrant Fleet. The current proposal for this area consists entirely of plants grown on the Migrant Fleet's Liveships. As the plants originate from the Quarian homeworld and have been breed in isolation for several centuries, the entirety of the Quarian section will be kept sterile and visitors will be required to wear enviro-suits. Though genetic modification and certain chemicals could likely counteract the vulnerability of these traditional crops, making the sterile environment unnecessary, the designers wished visitors to experience life as Quarians do and to provide a relatively safe space for Quarian visitors to move freely without their suits. Because the Migrant Fleet does not have the resources to allow recreational gardening, all plants in this section are expected to agricultural in nature. Though many have expressed fears that this will make the section somewhat uninteresting when compared to the vibrancy of other gardens, the design team has stated their hope that rarity of these unique plants will counteract this handicap.

The current plan for the middle ring predominantly features plants from Khar'shan, the Batarian homeworld. Central to the proposed Batarian display are ten stone pillars, one for each of the virtues described in the famous Batarian religious text "The Pillars of Strength". Quotations and other inspirational passages from historical Batarian philosophers and poets are to be inscribed on each of the columns. Flowering Har'drak vines, traditionally symbolizing rejuvenation and rebirth in many Batarian religions, will climb the sides of each pillar. The columns themselves will be mounted in the center of several raised flower beds, arranged into small step pyramids. Each step represents a caste in the traditional Batarian social hierarchy, and will be decorated with the flowers typically favored by each caste. Notably absent is the lowest caste, traditionally reserved for slaves. The slave caste was formally abolished by a conclave of surviving Batarian theological, judicial, and social leaders following the end of the Extermination. The flowers selected for the displays are currently planned to be those used for the funerary displays of each caste, to represent the mourning of the Batarian people for the billions they have lost.

The final section of the garden is planned to be dedicated to Krogan. This area has the dubious distinction of being the only section not designed by members of the species it honors, as no Krogan could be found with the skill or desire to participate. Despite this, many clans have expressed interest in the project, and made donations of local Tuchanka flora. As the project is still in its design phase and the donated plants have been universally large and carnivorous, many detractors have speculated that the gifts are intended as mocking critiques rather than gestures of support. The project heads have elected to display the donations anyway, as they provide an excellent example of the harshness of life on the Krogan homeworld. Vigorous pruning and flash barriers will theoretically prevent visitors from venturing close enough to be harmed. The centerpiece of the proposed display is the Presidium's Krogan Monument, which will be moved to the Gardens from its current location. The Monument will be surrounded by a bed of kelphics, donated by an anonymous female clan. Despite the severe allergic reactions their touch produces in most species, kelphics are one of the few non-carnivorous flowers that remain on Tuchanka. As ancient clans could not cross kelphic fields without suffering crippling injury, they have historically been symbols of peace and diplomacy in Krogan culture.

Despite its lofty goals, the project has been plagued with controversy almost from its conception. When the project was first announced, many were critical that the money being invested toward it would be better used elsewhere. These concerns only grew as the project expanded in scope, drastically going over its original budget estimates.

Simultaneously, protests over the proposed Garden of the Lost have been launched by several groups. As the Quarians and Batarians did not leave the Council of their own free will, many felt that dedicating a garden to them would be nothing more than a cruel mockery. Others were offended that the Batarians did not receive their own full garden as the other Associate species did, as they are technically affiliated with the Council again.

These and other dissenting opinions have found a voice in the Equalists, a popular extranet activist group known for their dubiously-legal tactics and distinctly anti-Council attitude. An Equalist officer, who wished to remain anonymous, had this to say about the project.

"Those Gardens are condescending bullshit. The Council thinks it can just sit up in its tower and make us 'lesser' races fight for the honor of 'ascending' to their level? If they really respected us as much as they say they do, they'd give us a say in how this galaxy is run instead of a bunch of flowers!"

The Equalists have held three events in the Presidium protesting the construction of the Gardens. All three gatherings were dispersed by C-Sec within minutes. Images from the most recent C-Sec suppression went viral shortly afterward, and many have attempted to use this as an example of the Council suppressing opinions they find inconvenient. C-Sec officials have responded by pointing out that none of the protesters obtained a permit beforehand, making the gatherings inherently illegal.

The resolution of the Hanar Crisis has provided a new roadblock to construction. Following the Council's continued refusal to turn over the equipment and personnel captured at Undercurrent, almost a hundred different Tarkasian clans joined in a boycott of the Council. With its Tarkasian workers and design team on strike, work on the Gardens had to be delayed while much of the work schedule was rearranged.

The most recent issue with the project came when a rogue AI of unknown origin infiltrated much of the Citadel and went wild. One hundred sixty eight people were killed in the violence, with three times as many injured. Due to the massive cost of repairs and new security measures, the Council announced that Garden construction would have to be cancelled due to lack of funds.

It was saved at the last moment when the Asari colony of Lusia took up an extranet collection to try and keep the project alive, raising several hundred thousand credits in the first few days. The Human corporation Bolough Dynamics joined with Binary Helix and Brother Peacemaker Armaments in support of the charity. All three corporations pledged to match every credit donated, effectively quadrupling the amount of money raised. The Gardens were fully funded within three weeks, and work is expected to resume next month.


	56. Futile (Story)

_Well, it's been a while! Sorry for the delay, I got bogged down with my other story, Mesozoic Effect, and I just needed a break. This chapter was a real pain to write, it felt like trying to pull teeth. But it's finally here! _

_At the risk of a slight spoiler, the beam sword was something I wrestled with for a while. It's based off the laser sword you can find the Pit, and the Wiki can't seem to agree if it's a Human or Morrigi design. I decided to split the difference and say it was a Morrigi weapon the Humans stole. As much as I love my lightsabers, they doesn't really fit the Mass Effect universe, so I was originally going to leave both weapons out. But the Council hasn't had much chance to show off their new stuff, and a sword version of the Prothean Particle Rifle was just too cool and persistent to pass up. _

_The next Codex may be slightly delayed, as I'm going to try to write a new snip to replace Chapter 6 (Justice). It's not relevant to anything, doesn't fit with the way the power balance eventually worked out, and I just don't like it much. Chapter 5 has the same problems, but I haven't figured out what to replace it with yet. We'll see what I can think up. _

_In further news, started hiding the links on my profile, so I've removed them. I may move the pictures to Deviantart or something at some point, but for now just ask if you have tech or scale questions. Reviews are appreciated and will be answered, as always._

* * *

Tela Vasir sighed heavily as she walked through the remains of what had once been an open-air market, her mind filled with dark thoughts. The past month had largely desensitized her from the shock of seeing one of Thessia's great cities in such horrible shape, but the dark shadows burnt into the walls still made her stomach roll as she strode past. Some of them were far too small to have been left by adults.

"Kids," she muttered to herself, frowning. "Why is it always kids?"

The mission had gone perfectly. The tip, suspicious as it had been, had panned out. The tracer led her straight to the loathsome Human who had been peddling Glamour Dust for the past few months. An hour and three fingers later and he'd spilled everything he knew. Truth be told she probably could have gotten him to talk with just one finger, but the wretched man had disgusted her enough that she couldn't resist breaking a few extra. Considering what she'd found at the drug den he'd been selling to, she was honestly started to regret letting him live.

In retrospect, she supposed she should have known what she'd find. Sex trafficking and drug running usually ran hand in hand, and both tended to spike after disasters. The Eclipse had never been comprised of saints, and large mercenary deployments also tended to bring corresponding increase in illegal activities. Logically, she should have expected it. Another part of her was glad she hadn't. Even if she knew better, it was nice to believe that there were some lines people wouldn't cross, no matter how much they stood to profit.

"Kids."

With a snarl, she vented her frustrations on a crumbling statue, unleashing a wave of biotics that crushed it to powder.

"And just what did Kurinth ever do to you?" asked a mocking voice from nearby.

"Can we do this some other time, Miranda? I've had a long day," Tela snapped, turning to face the Human agent. She'd traded her usual skin-tight suit for slender white armor with dull yellow highlights, and was leaning calmly against a nearby wall. The armor and her overly casual attitude sent warning bells ringing in the Asari's mind. This wasn't going to be an ordinary meeting.

"My fault, I'm afraid," said the Blue Section operative, pushing off the wall and casually walking forward, hips swaying like they always did. "But I honestly didn't know what they were doing in there. If I had, I would have tipped you off sooner."

"Sure you would have." She frowned. While Miranda's mental shields weren't the strongest she'd seen, they were still solid enough to cancel out her empathy. There was no way of knowing what she was really planning. "Why are you here?"

"Cleaning up loose ends. SIC is scaling back, and operations like this are just increasing tensions. The last thing we want is a war," explained the Human, her path curving slightly so she now stood between the Spectre and the market's nearest exit. "Call it a gesture of good faith."

Tela couldn't help it. She laughed, a cruel, mocking sound that caused the smile to slip from the Human's perfect face for a moment.

"If you're going to lie, at least have the decency to make your lie believable," she scoffed. "I've been doing this for longer than you've been alive. You think I can't tell when I'm being taken for a ride? If you really wanted to shut this operation down, you'd have done it a lot more neatly."

"We all have our off days," Miranda replied with another easy smile and a shrug.

"Not you," Tela countered. The longer she stood here, the more aware she became of just how exposed this position was. There could be a dozen sniper rifles pointed at her right now, and she'd never know it. "Stop wasting my time. We both know how this is going to end, so quit stalling and let's just get it over with."

Miranda sighed, pressing a gauntlet against her face in irritation.

"I'm trying to resolve this peacefully, Vasir. It doesn't have to get messy."

"Considering you still haven't told me why you're really here, you'll forgive me if I don't believe you. Still, I'll humor you." She turned to a nearby bench, half buried in falling rubble, and took a seat. Her relaxed posture hid the fact that one of her hands now rested directly on her assault rifle and fallen slab now neatly blocked several of most likely sniper positions. Two could play this game. "What is it you really want?"

"We need to know how to find the Shadow Broker."

"Good luck," said Tela mockingly. "No one knows how to find him. Not even the Spectres."

"Now who's playing games? You may not know how to find him, but you can narrow it down," Miranda explained, her smile fading. "We've been collecting information on the Broker's whereabouts for a long time now. There's only one piece missing, and we know you have it. Tell us what you know, and we'll be on our way."

"Alright, let's say you're right and I do know enough to lead you to the Broker. Do you honestly expect me to rat out my best source just because you asked nicely?" she asked with a laugh. "For that matter, do you think I want the SIC getting their hands on the kind of information he collects? Even if he weren't useful to me, I'd still tell you to get stuffed."

"You might want to reconsider that. This isn't a fight you can win," Miranda warned, hands falling to where two pistols rested on her hips.

"Please. This is my homeworld. I don't care how many Black Section goons you brought. By the time you actually subdue me, this place will be swarming with commandos. You'll never get off Thessia alive."

"We'll see."

Miranda opened her mouth as if to speak again, but it was just a faint. Her guns practically leapt into her hands, unfolding instantly as she drew. Tela was already moving, shoving off the bench and throwing herself forward in a biotic charge that blasted the Human off her feet.

She spun to finish her opponent, but was forced to dive for cover as a sniper round slapped off the shields around her head, dropping them with a crash. Whoever it was, they were good to be able to readjust for a headshot so quickly. Couldn't be Miranda's usual partner, Jacob was a close to medium range fighter. Someone from Black Section then.

Miranda was already on her feet, dashing toward a row of cracked planters with unnatural speed. Something in the armor she wore was obviously boosting her speed, letting her much more mobile than she usually was. Damn Humans and their different kinds of powered armor. Pick a theme and stay with it, damn it!

Pulling up a barrier to protect herself from the sniper, Tela leaned out of her cover and threw a biotic shockwave that lifted the heavy planters into the air, exposing the running Human. Before she could bring up her rifle, Miranda had already reacted, throwing herself to the ground and using her momentum to slide under the hovering planters. Her pistols came up instantly, and she started firing even as she continued to slide.

Though Tela had never personally tangled with Blue Sections' legendary Ice Queen, she knew how the Human fought by reputation. Miranda liked to be prepared for every eventually, and had equal aptitudes for technology and psionics. Even her weapons were balanced: a magpistol in her right hand, and a laser pulsar in her left. The ballistic weapon she could ignore, her biotics gave her more than enough protection against that sort of attack. The laser weapon was more dangerous.

Her concerns proved to be lethally well-founded as two burnt holes appeared on the surface of her armor almost before her eyes could even register the flash of the Human's pistol. A second sniper round smashed into her barriers, and the stinging bolts of Miranda's magpistol started chipping away at them from the front. Snarling, Tela dropped back into her cover, letting the planters fall directly on top of the Human agent.

It was a wasted effort. By the time they hit the ground, smashing large craters in the pavement as they did, Miranda had already rolled to her feet on their other side and broken into another sprint. Her eyes flashed in a golden glow, and Tela felt her armor's joints begin to tighten as the Human's mecha empathy seized control of them.

"You wish," she snapped, crystalizing her mind into something diamond-hard. She could feel the power running through her, like electricity and snow, and her armor's joints immediately relaxed. "Those little parlor tricks aren't going to be strong enough to affect me."

"Your powers aren't strong enough to get through my shield either," Miranda called back, rolling behind a fallen pillar and snapping several new rounds into her pistol.

"Then I suppose it's too bad that psychic shields don't work on biotic abilities, isn't it?"

In a single move, Tela vaulted over her cover and blasted forward in a biotic charge that ended just behind the Human woman's cover. The shockwave of the charge again sent her sprawling, and the lack of covering fire told Tela that they had accidentally wandered into one of the mystery sniper's blind spots. But even as the Asari brought her rifle up to fire a burst into Miranda's head, the fallen agent smiled that toothy grin again.

"Got you."

Three mines exploded all around Tela, crackling arcs of electricity that smashed her newly restored shields and washed over her in a wave of painful tingling.

"Psionic shields might not work against biotics, but dampening mines do," Miranda reminded, bringing her guns up to point at Tela's head. "Give up. By now, your body's bioelectricy is so screwed up you won't be able to use your abilities for at least another minute."

In response, the Asari spun, her right leg glowing with the flames of biotic power as she smashed it into the Human's gut. The impact sent her flying, and she smashed into a nearby wall hard enough to crack the cement.

"Get with the times, Miranda." She walked leisurely over to the dazed Human and lifted her stunned face to stare into her opponent's eyes. "The Republic's had armor that can ground out dampening shocks for months now. You Humans aren't the only ones with new tricks."

"Seen this one yet?" asked a new voice, and Tela spun to see a man in dark armor standing at the other end of the market, his eyes glowing like beacons. He gestured, sending a veritable avalanche of debris and shattered glass tumbling down from one of the nearby skyscrapers, turning in the air to fall directly on top of her.

The trick was clever, she admitted as she dove frantically out of the way of the falling rubble. Her psionic shields would have stopped a direct telekinetic strike, but they wouldn't do anything against gravity. This new Human knew his way around a psychic duel. As she came to her feet, she noticed that he'd even managed to grab Miranda with his telekinesis and pull her out of the way before she could be crushed. Definitely a professional.

A sniper shot smashed into her back, reminding her that standing still in the middle of a fight wasn't a good idea. The new Human was already drawing a weapon, a laser pistol. She sprayed a quick burst from her rifle to drive him into cover while she took stock of the situation. They'd obviously come equipped to counter her barriers, so why was their sniper using a ballistic weapon instead of a laser rifle?

There was only one good reason Tela could think of: range. Unlike ballistic weapons, the damage dealt by lasers dropped off sharply as you moved away from the target. It hardly mattered in close firefights like this one, but for long range sniping handheld lasers had serious performance issue. She slid behind a pillar and made a quick survey of the battlefield. The windows of the towering buildings that supported the market were too close. A laser would still be effective at that range. Where…

A bullet smashed into her neck, and telekinetic blast crushed much of her cover to dust. Even as she rolled past the storm of lasers to dive behind a fallen aircar, the Spectre smiled. Her barriers were low, but that final shot could only have come from one direction. Far across the empty expanse left for the city's usual traffic stood another row of towering skyscrapers. They were over a hundred meters away, far enough that a normal laser weapon would start losing power, but offered a perfect angle to shoot at anyone in the market. That's where their sniper was hiding.

A grenade bounced over the edge of the crater and Tela jumped to her feet. The Humans were waiting, and she found herself walking right into a storm of laser blasts. A thought and gesture created a biotic tunnel away from the lethal trap, bringing her safely behind another towering statue. No sooner had the flare of biotics died then she realized that this too was a trap: the statue had been rigged with demolition charges.

She reacted instantly, diving away even as the elegant carving exploded into a thousand razor-sharp fragments. The barrier boost her dash had given her absorbed the worst of the blast, and her armor's shields took the rest. The blue surface of her armor had seen better days, now sporting several nasty new burns, but the ablative layer seemed to have stopped the worst of it.

"You want to play rough? Fine," she spat, eyes narrowing. "Let's see if you can keep up!"

A bullet tore through the space her head had occupied, but she was already gone. With a flash of light and blast of force, she appeared directly behind the male Human. The impact knocked him to the ground, and she immediately shoved her gun into his face, holding down the trigger until the weapon overheated.

Even after being hit by her charge, the man had the presence of mind to throw up a hasty screen with his telekinesis. Instead of trying to directly block the shots (a pointless endeavor, considering the speeds a round from a magnetic rifle could travel at), he cleverly slanted it in an attempt to deflect the rounds. The tactic worked, if barely. While only a handful of her shots were deflected enough to actually miss him, most were shunted toward less lethal areas, where his shields and armor could absorb the impacts. His barriers were down and he was bleeding from several shallow holes in his armor, but he was still alive.

A laser blast burned a black hole into her shoulder, forcing Tela away before she could finish the fallen Human. She shot to the side in a bolt of blue fire, resolving next to Miranda in another explosive detonation. A sniper round greeted her as the Human woman rolled away, clearly expecting the move. Miranda's omnitool flashed, and Tela again found herself standing atop a set of active tech mines.

These were overload mines, and were considerably more effective than the dampening mines had been. The armor Tela wore was state-of-the-art and hardened against tech mines, but it had never been designed to handle three overload mines at once. Her shields went down, and the electric garbage released by the mines took her biotic barriers with them.

Miranda and the hidden sniper wasted no time taking advantage of her weakness, but Tela was a step ahead of them. The icy rivers of focus flowing through her body crystalized with a thought, resolving into a glowing latex of energy covering her skin and the surface of her armor. The Human bullets smashed into her chest like hammers, but the hasty psychic reinforcement stopped them from penetrating. Another biotic dash brought her behind the wreckage of the planters she'd levitated earlier, and she ducked hastily in an attempt to catch her breath.

Normally Tela wouldn't have had a problem dealing with a sniper and a few SIC operatives. Miranda and her friend were skilled, but she didn't need to kill them. The explosions were certain to bring help soon. The Humans had almost certainly bribed the Eclipse forces into standing down, but even stretched as thin as they were what remained of the city's legitimate law enforcement assets couldn't miss an attack on this scale. All she had to do was hold out long enough for reinforcements to show up.

But the Humans knew that too. They'd rigged the entire market as a huge trap, and while Miranda's old partner might have been a skilled fighter he was no sniper. That meant he was still around somewhere, waiting to attack when she was most vulnerable. No, she couldn't stay here. She surveyed the windows that looked down on the market and thought about charging up to one. It would be an easy jump…but an obvious one. Considering how well they'd anticipated her moves so far, she didn't doubt there would be an unpleasant surprise waiting for her if she tried to escape through such conventional means.

"Give up, Vasir," called the male Human from somewhere beyond her cover. "We don't want to hurt you."

"Really? Because the guns and bombs say otherwise!"

"If we wanted you dead, we'd have blown the whole market the moment you walked in," he pointed out. "Just surrender. Please."

"Go screw yourself, monkey."

"Fine. I warned you."

A cascade of flame washed over Tela's position, engulfing everything around her. Her psychic shields canceled part of the pyrokinetic burst before it could hurt her, but the flames still blocked her vision and scorched the pavement around her. She knew what would come next and was moving before the flames even had a chance to die down.

The grenade one of them had thrown while the flames blinded her went off with a roar, annihilating the nearby planters and blowing a new crater on top of the old one. Miranda was already on her, that damn armor of hers letting her get to a good firing position almost instantly. Tela shot first, keeping her from using her lethal laser pistol, but another shot from the sniper smashed into her face, sparking off her shields in a crackling impact. Even through the shields the bullet hurt, and the other Human was already moving to flank her. She needed to get out of here, but-Ah. That would do.

She threw herself into a sprint, firing blindly at the male Human just to keep him busy for a moment. Behind her Miranda also started to run, trying to cut her off, but it was too late. Even with the boost the Human's armor gave her, Tela had too much of a head start to catch.

"See you!" the Spectre called mockingly, and threw herself straight off the edge of the marketplace and into thin air. As she leapt, she triggered her biotics and blasted away in a flash of light.

Originally she'd merely planned on jumping off and drifting safely to the ground. Unfortunately, while slowing a fall with biotics was a cute party trick, it was one the Humans had almost certainly seen before. Their sniper would take her to pieces long before she reached safety. He would have to be dealt with before she could get away.

Resolving from her charge in midair, she lightened herself as much as she dared while simultaneously summoning up another burst of psychic reinforcement for her armor. Miranda was at the edge of the market, both her pistols blazing at the hovering Asari. A sniper round splashed off the biotic barriers a centimeter from her nose, just before Tela vanished in another streak of light.

She charged a third time almost the second she reformed, darting forward again. This time, she had to stop and rest for a few seconds after the mass-free tunnel collapsed. She was beyond the reach of the Humans in the marketplace, but the shots that slammed into her chest and then her head reminded her that the sniper was still quite able to engage her. The effort of staying weightless and triggering so many charges in succession was making her entire body burn with agony. There'd be hell to pay for this tomorrow morning, and she was barely half way.

Another dash, and when the glowing tunnel faded away Tela was left wishing she'd just let the Human set her on fire. It probably would have hurt less. The constant biotic charges were the only thing keeping her barriers up, but a pause in the sniper's near-constant assaults meant that he was probably reloading. That gave her a bit of a breather. She made the mistake of glancing around, and was treated to the horrifying sight of the huge drop below her as she drifted slowly downward. To halt the crippling vertigo, she tried to focus on finding where the sniper was hiding.

The building before her had been almost cut in half when the antimatter missiles hit, part of its upper spire snapping off to crush a second nearby structure. It's shining façade had been completely shattered, the glass torn away and metal warped. That left a lot of places for her enemy to hide, but a few jerky movements several stories above her gave Tela all the information she needed. Time to see how that sniper enjoyed being on the receiving end for a change…

Triggering her fifth jump felt like someone had replaced every nerve in her body with white-hot wire. She bit off a scream, focusing on the mental exercises she'd been taught as a commando. Her over-taxed body still screamed, but she could ignore it. Floating through the air, she raised her rifle to shoot the exposed sniper…and found herself face to face with a charging suit of black Brawler armor.

"Oh, you are freaking kidding me!" she swore, just before the jump pack on the Human armor flared, sending the sniper smashing into her like a runaway train.

The hit broke Tela's concentration, and she began tumbling out of control. Her rifle fell from her fingers and she saw stars. The Human who tackled her didn't have any problems though, hovering mockingly on his jets as she started to fall. Tela snarled. Her rage let her ignore the pain in her body and gave her the strength to trigger one final biotic charge.

She hit the Human like a missile, slamming the black armor into the side of the ruined building hard enough to trigger a small river of broken glass and dust. With her left hand she clung to the Human's chest plate while she dumped biotic power into her right fist and smashed it into the Brawler's helmet. The metal dented, and Tela pulled back for a second punch.

"Get off!" yelled the synthesized voice of the armor's occupant, and Tela was surprised to find the occupant was actually a woman. This surprise ended quickly when the Human spun in midair and crushed her into the side of the building. Her grip slipped, but instead of grabbing back on, Tela let go and started free falling.

"Better catch me if you want me alive!" she yelled over the roaring wind. At first it seemed like the Human wouldn't take the bait, but then her jets snapped off and she dove after the falling Spectre.

With her jets the black-armored Human was able to close the distance very quickly. She reached down to grab one of Tela's arms, and the Asari noted that the Human's hand was covered in flickering arcs of electricity. A shock gauntlet. Somehow the idea that SolForce was taking ideas from the Batarians of all people didn't surprise her. Still, there was no way she was going to let the Human touch her with one of those.

Grabbing a small object from her belt, Tela dropped her mass one last time, suddenly slowing her decent. The Human missed the grab and instead tried to turn it into another tackle. The Asari agent went with it, letting her opponent smash into her before flipping the switch on the device she'd just grabbed.

A meter-long blade of energy flicked into life centimeters from the Human's chest. The scorching torrent ripped a hole the size of Tela's fist in her armored breastplate, and as the woman frantically shoved the Spectre away Tela saw blood oozing from the wound. Then she hit the ground.

Reducing her mass at the last moment had kept the fall from killing her, but the massive effort of her recent exertions had taken their toll. She hit hard enough to crack the pavement beneath her, and based off the explosion of agony in her side she'd managed to snap a few ribs. Without her psionically reinforced armor, she'd have been a blue stain.

The Human hadn't landed much better, but her armor was much more solid. As Tela tried to get the world to stop spinning, she could hear mechanical clanks and whines as the Human rose to her feet. Shaking her head to try and convince her eyes to stop seeing triple, she noticed a pink stripe along the Human's armor and took a shot in the dark.

"Williams. You're Ashley Williams," she slurred, tasting blood. Her suit was already dosing her with medigel, but it would take a while to kick in. She needed to stall.

"And you're a thief. That laser sword is Human technology," the woman growled, the distortion of her armor making her words even more threatening.

"It's Morrigi technology, which your people looted from one of their sacred tombs," Tela corrected, staggering to her feet and activating her sword again. The Human was applying medigel to her own injuries and hadn't tried to close the gap yet. "And I think you'll find this is a bit different from one of your laser swords."

"Really."

"It uses gravity to shape charged particles, not lased light. If the beam had enough time to spin up, it would have gone right through that tin can you're wearing," Tela explained, though the Human woman obviously didn't care. Truth be told Tela didn't give a damn about it either, but if it bought her a few more seconds she'd recite the entirety of the thing's technical manual. The medigel was working now and her mind was clearing. She just needed a bit more time.

"And how do you know who I am?"

"I'm a Spectre that works with the Shadow Broker. Give me some credit. If you're Williams, that would make the psion up there your partner, Kaidan Alenko. And your team leader-" Tela stopped in mid-sentence as her brain caught up with her mouth. This was Shepard's team, the best Black Section had to offer. There was no way they'd fall for a cheap stall like the one she'd just tried. Williams was buying time too.

She dove for the protection of fallen skycar, but it was too late. A laser bolt blasted into her shoulder from behind like a spear of fire. She spun and saw Miranda's partner Jacob, crouched behind a collapsed wall with a laser rifle in his hands. His armor bore the tell-tale glowing outlines of SolForce PsiWar armor, and his face was grim. Even as she came up behind the smashed car, she could hear metallic clicking from Williams' position. The woman was drawing a weapon. Above, two flashes of light caught her eye, and she saw that Miranda and Alenko had donned jump packs of their own. They'd be able to join the battle in moments.

She'd fallen for it again. The Humans had set her up completely, but she might still be able to turn it around if she was lucky. With a slashing movement that made her arm spasm horribly, she launched a biotic shockwave at Jacob. The man dove backward as the glowing wave of explosions tracked toward him, but Tela didn't care. She just needed him busy while she dealt with his new friend.

As a meter-wide section of her cover exploded into molten slag, she reflected on the old Human axiom 'Easier said than done'. Williams had pulled out a fusion cannon of all weapons, and appeared to have no compunctions about using such a huge weapon against someone they were trying to bring in alive. Tela would have felt complimented by their apparent confidence in her abilities, were she not furious that they were shooting at her with a freaking fusion cannon.

Though something in the Human's helmet was dampening the effect, Tela reached out with her empathy. She could definitely feel the whispers of emotions from the woman, like heat and static in the air. Miranda and her irritating psionic shields were still too far to provide protection, and Williams lacked the psionic training that Jacob and Alenko were likely using to cloud themselves. Tela could feel the annoyance and apprehension in the woman's mind, and she seized on that last emotion instantly.

What felt to the Asari like a storm of ice billowed out her head like an arctic gale, washing over Williams and seeping into the cracks in her mind. Immediately the Human began backpedaling, firing frantic shots as fast as her gun would allow. This hasty barrage took several huge chunks from the nearby architecture, but were completely ineffective at warding off her opponent.

Focusing, Tela thumbed her sword to full power and called up her biotics again. Wrapped in a tunnel of glowing light, she flashed across the short distance in a split second. The shockwave of the biotic envelope collapsing splashed harmlessly over the heavy alien power armor, but it hardly mattered. The moment the world came back into focus, Tela slammed her glowing blade into the Human's chest, embedding it up to the hilt.

Before she could complete the move and carve the woman in half, a bolt of pure agony shot through the back of her neck, and her body convulsed. Her bio-amp felt like it had been converted to molten metal, and every muscle in her body was on fire. She'd only experienced this level of pain once before, when she'd been nothing more than an initiate and had recklessly pushed her biotics too far too fast. When she woke up two days later her instructor had explained the pain was called Reb'ekha Adat, the Guardian's Demon, and that it was a natural consequence of overtaxing her biotic nodes. She'd never made that mistake again…until now.

Her limbs had stopped twitched, but the pain hadn't faded. She wasn't sure how she'd managed to stay conscious this time, but somehow she had. Her gaze was fogged by pain and blood, but she could still see the glowing form of Jacob moving back into position, his rifle at the ready. Above, Miranda and Alenko were flashing their jump packs to slow their decent for their landing. In her current state, she was practically helpless. She needed a distraction. Fortunately, Williams had left one for her to use, if she could just get her screaming muscles to work for a few seconds.

Unclipping a pair of grenades from her belt, she tossed the magnetic disks at the battered skycar and prayed to anything that might be listening. She twitched a finger in the mnemonic gesture that would set them off and threw herself to the ground.

Thoughts raced through her mind as she fell. It was a well-known fact that purified element zero was naturally volatile, to the point where the yield of even a relatively small ship's core detonation could be measured in kilotons. Since no one wanted to ride around on a flying bomb, the tiny eezo cores that allowed skycars to float were designed to be durable. The core of a skycar could survive impacts that would pulverize the rest of the vehicle, and even several hits from Williams' fusion cannon hadn't been enough to trigger a detonation. But they had been enough to expose the core, and Tela was hoping that was all she'd need.

The explosive mods she'd put on her grenades hit hard enough to rip the tracks off a Hiver battle tank. That had to be enough to set off the core. Unless she'd missed and they hadn't clamped onto the core. Her vision was too blurry to see that deep into the wreck. Or if the seal on the core had been cracked when it crashed, and the eezo inside had decayed harmlessly. The car had been sitting here for weeks, it-

The skycar exploded in a massive ball of blue fire, but Tela never even heard it. She felt it, the shockwave instantly smashing her shields into static and still having enough force left over to bruise her through her armor. The blast tore a huge crater in the center of the street, ripping down into the sewers and pipes below and engulfing the entire area in a cloud of dust and debris.

Her skull was still ringing and Tela was pretty sure she'd gone at least temporarily deaf, but she wasn't about to let this opportunity go to waste. Throwing a second pair of grenades into the dust just to keep the Humans busy, she reached over to grab her sword and paused for a moment. A single chest wound wouldn't be enough to kill someone like Williams, though the shock of the impact had apparently knocked her out for the moment. It would be easy to finish her now.

Instead, she turned off the beam sword and lurched to her feet. Finishing the woman would be a good move in the long-term, but if she was still alive her teammates would have to stop and tend to her wounds. Abandoning or silencing her wouldn't be an option for them. Her equipment alone was far beyond what a mercenary could afford, and concrete proof of hostile SIC agents on Thessia would almost certainly force a declaration of war against SolForce. The Humans weren't ready for that, not yet. For now, Williams was more useful alive than dead.

As her grenade exploded somewhere behind her, Tela staggered through a small hole in a crumbling wall, almost collapsing as she flopped boneless into the cover the building provided. Levering herself to her feet with a silent groad, she forced herself to start walking. She didn't dare stop moving, limping through shattered hallways and up broken stairways almost at random. The Humans couldn't search everywhere. She just needed to get some distance.

The ringing in her head slowly began to fade, replaced by a static-filled voice coming from her omni-tool. Miranda must have been jamming it somehow earlier. She'd never even noticed. Pulling one aching arm up, she opened the channel.

"This is Spectre Vasir. I've been attacked by multiple Humans. They're heavily armed and well trained." She paused, and after a moment's thought continued with, "Unknown allegiance. Probably freelance."

"_Sp…tre this is Det…Anaya. We're getting reports of explosions and gunfire from…the hell is going on?"_

"I was attacked," Tela repeated angrily. "I need a pick up, ASAP. What's your closest transport?"

"…_gunship within a kilometer of your transmission…garrison has been notified, and…commandos…sit tight."_

She snarled as the signal was lost in a spray of static again. A few flicks of her fingers brought the band back into focus, but it was still weak.

"I have reason to believe the individuals who attacked me are still on my trail," she growled, limping through a featureless hallway. "I can't just sit and wait. Vector your transport to-ERK!"

Her words were cut off as metallic fist smashed straight through the wall beside her, grabbing her head and using it to pull her straight through the broken mortar in a spray of dust and gravel. Then she was flying, thrown bodily through the air to smash bonelessly against another wall.

"How…did you find me?" she wheezed, the chalky taste of dust filling her mouth as she futilely tried to regain her footing. "My mental shields-_cough_-my shields were still…"

"I traced your communicator," answered a distorted voice, and Tela's splotchy gaze cleared just enough for her to see an armored shoulder painted in red, white, and black. Shepard.

"Damn it. I-_coughcough_-I should have known."

Heavy feet ground against the rubble on the floor as the Human walked over and knelt in front of her. She could see a needle of some type clutched in a gauntleted hand, and knew she had to do something. It felt like she was trying to push through molasses and her head was so banged up she was seeing double again, but fear and desperation gave her focus.

Her sword flicked to life, slicing upward in a swipe that should have sliced Shepard's hand off but succeeded only in destroying the needle the Human held. She rolled to her feet but overbalanced, stumbling heavily into a wall. Her vision faded to a cloud of red, and she lost track of Shepard until an armored fist smashed into her gut, heavily enough to crack her armor.

She hit the floor limply, vomiting blood. Her sword bounced out of her grip, and a metallic crunching sound told her that Shepard had just made sure she wouldn't be able to use it again. Her limbs weren't responding any more, but she felt herself rise anyway, held by a single armored hand on her neck. Tela blinked the blood out of her eyes and found herself staring directly into Shepard's expressionless visor.

"Are you done?" asked the crackling voice flatly.

She smiled thinly through bleeding lips, trying to project a confidence her mangled body no longer felt.

"Almost…" she slurred, spitting blood. "…got…one last trick."

A single twitch of her fingers deactivated the clamps holding her remaining grenades to her belt, and they fell to the floor in a heavy metallic rain. They beeped in unison as they simultaneously went active, and Tela would have given anything to see the expression on Shepard's face when the Human realized they were now surrounded by a half-dozen live grenades. Then everything turned white.

…

When she awoke, it felt like every single cell of her body had spontaneously decided to tear itself to pieces. Seeing as how this meant she must still be alive, she decided to celebrate by indulging a therapeutic round of agonized screaming.

"Ah, extreme pain! Excellent! No paralysis."

"It…doesn't feel…excellent," she panted, opening her eyes.

The harsh light of the room made the pain even worse, but she forced herself to look around and swiftly discovered that she was in a makeshift medical facility of some kind. Her armor had been pulled off, and she was covered in bandages. She lay in a cot, thin curtains separating her from several other identical cots, several of which were still occupied. The voice belonged to a battered old Salarian, dressed in white and red laboratory gear. He smiled broadly.

"Naturally. Be shocked if it did. Still, better than the alternative. Broken bones, concussion, third-degree burns, biotic overload, lacerations…" The Salarian sniffed. "Lucky to be alive."

"You…you're the doctor that runs the clinic…in the middle of nowhere," she muttered, the memories coming back. "Mordin Solus…STG."

"No. Retired. Just doctor now." He glanced at a nearby monitor. "Still, have been known to…consult, on occasion."

"…how..." she began, before her head swam and her stomach revolted. The Salarian waved his omnitool, and a tingling numbness washed over her, blocking the dizziness and banishing the nausea. "Thank you. How did I get here?"

"Found you laying in the street. Explosion nearby, only minor explosive damage to armor. Must have been thrown clear before blast. Curious. Damage to equipment extensive. Armor state-of-the-art, showing signs of laser and ballistic damage. Surface has minor fusion burns."

"Enough. We need to-" she began, but Solus was in his own little world now, staring intently at a datafeed on his omnitool.

"Trauma and breastplate fractures consistent with blunt impacts. Powered armor. Tarka or Human. Zuul and Hiver prefer punching or slashing weapons. Politically motivated revenge attack? No, weapons too advanced. Mercenary? No, no, too risky. Must be-"

"Will you shut up?! We need to move! The people who did this-AGH!" She stopped in midsentence as she tried to sit up and her ribs exploded in pain.

"Lay down. Definitely not in condition to be moving. Clinic is well defended. Will be safe for now."

"It won't be enough."

"Oh?" asked the doctor skeptically, his expression slightly curious. On cue, the sound of gunfire began echoing from somewhere outside. Seconds later, something detonated with a blast that shook the walls.

"We have to go. Get me a medical exoskeleton or something, I think I can walk."

"You have dedicated enemies," he agreed, then turned and smiled thinly. "Still, made one critical mistake."

"Which was?" Tela asked angrily. Her patience with the eccentric Salarian was wearing thin.

"Attacked my clinic."

Something in the walls started grinding and groaning, and the muffled _whoosh_ of rockets resounded. Mordin turned his attention to a nearby terminal, his thin fingers dancing over the keys. Tela blinked. The crazy bastard was enjoying this! He was even humming to himself! Normally, that level of confidence would have been something she found admirable but now, half paralyzed and without weapons or armor, she just found it infuriating.

"Hmm. Drone control being subverted by outside source. No viral elements in network. Mecha empathy. Interesting." He smiled. "Deploying countermeasures."

"You have a countermeasure for mecha empathy?" she asked, surprised.

"Don't need one. Have these."

As if summoned, a set of six varren loped past at a run. The lizard-like creatures were coated in glossy white armor from head to toe, with only a small amount of flesh on their undersides exposed. They didn't merely wear it, the gleaming plates seemed actually built into their bodies. Narrow, elongated helmets were fused to their heads, and their tails ended in thin, razor-sharp blades. On their backs rested glowing double-barreled turrets mounting pairs of sleek white guns.

Tela had to admit that Defenders were a clever solution to mecha empathy. While cyborgs were still somewhat vulnerable to empaths, their organic components made them much more resistant than normal drones were. Combating hostile psions were one of the reasons why the Tarkasians had developed Defenders in the first place. Their animal intelligence supplemented by computer guidance made them resistant to all forms of psychic ability, regardless of whether it effected organic or synthetic opponents.

"How did you get them?" she asked as the pack raced out of sight, their movements surprisingly graceful for their armored bulk. "I thought only the Tarka knew how to make Defenders."

"Not anymore."

The sporadic bursts of gunfire from the building's exterior were suddenly cut short when what sounded like a cluster bomb hit. Detonations rattled off one after the next like super-powered firecrackers, shaking the clinic enough for dust to drift down from the ceiling.

"Goddess. What did you people put on those Defenders?"

"Venom micro-grenade launchers," answered Mordin casually as the explosions continued unabated outside. "Union R&amp;D still working on hand-held variant. Too many heat problems. Had some thoughts on the design, actually. Built-in heat sink a mistake. With disposable thermal clip, design could become efficient enough for infantry use. Would need to streamline components, adjust for-"

Mordin's ramblings came to a sudden end when one of the cybernetic varren came flying through the far wall, its battered metal body landing in a heap of blood and sparks. A hulking form in mangled and scorched armor followed, its jets flashing as it slowed for landing. Tela recognized the figure instantly. Shepard.

A pistol unfolded at the Human's waist, and Shepard immediately pointed it at her. To the side, Mordin drew his own pistol and aimed it at the Human's head. A pair of huge Morrigi combat bots emerged from behind him, the huge laser cannons on their arms coming up as their shoulder-mounted grenade launchers swiveled down to point at the intruder. Each hovering drone was larger than a Changed Tarka, and she'd seen footage of them wiping out whole squads during Morrigi anti-pirate raids. Shepard didn't even flinch.

"Hmm," remarked Mordin. "Expecting SIC, but not Black Section. Most perplexing."

"She has information we need," stated Shepard calmly. "I don't want to fight you."

"Too bad," Tela said. "Mordin, they need me alive. Have your guards shoot, I'll be fine."

"Situation…not what it seemed," confessed the Salarian, lowering his pistol. The Morrigi war machines also lowered their weapons. "Have to think."

"What's to think about?" she yelled, incredulous. "I am a Council Spectre! Helping these Humans is treason!"

"Not technically treason. Never worked for Council, and you are not Salarian." He smiled quickly before turning back to the original topic. "Knew attacks didn't make sense. Thought perhaps preemptive strike, maybe botched assassination. Attempt to extract Council secrets, even. Black Section involvement…problematic."

Shepard's omnitool glowed to life, and Miranda's voice echoed from it.

"_Shepard, there's a gunship inbound, and Pressley says four troop transports just went transorbital from the local garrison. In a few minutes, this place will be crawling with commandoes. We need to go!"_

"Split up and go to ground. We'll link up at the transport. I'll get Vasir."

"_I hope you know what you're doing,"_ Miranda warned, and the omnitool faded away again. Shepard turned to face Mordin, head cocked in an unspoken question. The Salarian had begun to pace, gesturing angrily.

"Could be-no, no, risk to great! Not enough data, can't assess! Consequences too dire. Can't afford mistakes. Not this time. Have to make judgement call." He froze in mid-step and fixed his gaze on Shepard, his tone grim. "Heard a lot in STG. What happened with you under Feldspar. Rumors about what was behind it. Need to know. Is this-?"

"Yes."

The slender professor inhaled deeply through his nose and sighed, somehow managing to sound very old. Then he straightened, his expression firm.

"Can't help you escape," Mordin stated calmly, folding his pistol back up again and gesturing his two guards away. "Too many questions. Too political. Can stay and cover escape at least. You need to leave quickly. Local authorities already closing in. Space traffic likely already grounded."

"You're selling me out?" roared Tela, lunging forward and summoning what little remained of her biotics. She couldn't hurt Shepard, but it wouldn't take much to smear the frail Salarian against the wall, STG or not.

Mordin barely reacted, simply raising a hand and sending a blast of current arcing into her from his omnitool. Her body convulsed and her limbs went numb as she crumbled in mid-lunge, falling off the cot to land on the floor in a heap.

"Will administer sedatives," she heard him say, but his voice sounded wrong, like he was very far away. Her vision was darkening, but she couldn't move. "Keep her from waking up."

"Good shot," said the echoes of Shepard's distorted voice as the last of the light faded to nothing.

"Advantage of being Salarian. Never see me coming."


	57. Planetary Defense Simulation (Codex)

_So unfortunately my computer ate the first draft of this chapter, and I wound up having to rewrite it from scratch. Hence why it took so darn long and I wasn't able to finish writing the replacement for Chapter 6. Ah well. There will be time for that later!_

_I've been trying to find a way to shoehorn in some of the Ground Pounders stuff into this story for a freaking age, and I finally found an excuse in this chapter. We finally get to see how the ground forces of the SotS universe stack up against those of Mass Effect! ...of course, this is 50 years after First Contact, so they've had a while to update their weapons and tactics. Still, tanks and jets and orbital bombardment, oh my!_

_In other news, I've finally gotten around to making a TV Tropes page for Shepherd of the Stars and my other ME story, Mesozoic Effect! I mostly did it for the practice so I don't really plan on adding much more to them myself, but if anyone else feels like throwing some tropes on there feel free. One of my more prolific reviewers,_ Drgyen, _seems to have already gotten started. Thanks a bunch dude!_

_The next chapter likely won't be out for a bit, since I've got to do some writing for Mesozoic Effect first, but it should feature the return of some reader favorites: the Youth United group! Maybe if they're lucky I won't kill any of them this time around..._

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**Planetary OpFor Defense Simulation **

_(redirected from "PODS")_

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The Planetary OpFor Defense Simulation (more commonly known by its acronym, PODS) is an annual event hosted by the Citadel Council. Originally created at the request of the Turian Hierarchy following the Geth Uprising in 1895, the stated mission of PODS is to "facilitate interspecies cooperation and increase galactic readiness while familiarizing commanders with the tactics and weapons systems favored by other interstellar nations." The simulation is annual.

While non-Council species are technically not banned from participating, only Council members and Associate Members have ever been asked to participate or requested inclusion. The involvement of Council Associates was relatively uncommon until 2167, when SolForce asked to join part of the attacking force for that year's simulation. The Tarkasian Empire and Hiver Imperium both requested to participate in 2168. The Liir/Prester Zuul Alliance remained the only Associate nation to specifically decline inclusion until 2185, when they agreed to replace SolForce as one of the defending nations with the Human nation left the program for political reasons.

PODS uses the same format every year, with one or more nations selected to be the aggressors and another nation or group of nations designated as the defenders. A single system is selected as the battlefield for the simulated invasion, with conflict limited to one light-year of the system's star. These systems are always inhabited, and host systems are selected from a list of volunteer worlds. The effects of PODS on its hosts is a controversial subject, with supporters of the exercise claiming the influx of so many soldiers often has a beneficial effect on the local economy. The program's detractors point out that the maneuvers required by the simulation often have a detrimental effect on local ecosystems, and participating in the simulation's many evacuations and urban engagements often shuts down the host planet for several months.

Though battle is limited to one system, PODS invasions do not take place in a vacuum (metaphorically speaking). Each simulation is assumed to be part of a larger war plan, and both sides must act accordingly. The timeline of the overall war determines how long the exercise will run, typically between two and four months. The overall strategic situation also determines the amount of ships and troops that are available to each side. Attackers typically enjoy a distinct advantage in the orbital theater, while defenders usually have the edge on the ground.

While PODS attempts to simulate actual conflict as closely as possible, the heavy ordinance used on any modern battlefield would inflict irreparable damage to the host planet and almost certainly be lethal to the participants. To counter this, a series of simulated ordinance is used in conjunction with virtual reality HUDs. Weapons fire computerized soft shells, tightbeam lasers, or nanite gel, all of which can interface with the vehicles, armor, and HUDs of the various participants. This allows soldiers to see the effects of their weaponry and know when they have been 'killed' without risking actual harm or destroying the environments they are fighting in.

At the conclusion of each simulated campaign, victory is determined by a series of calculated point values. These points are dependent on a variety of factors such as enemy, allied, and civilian casualties, infrastructure seized or destroyed, damage done to the environment, supplies used, etc. Due to the way points are tallied, attackers may seize the entire planet but still be defeated because they have wasted more men and resources than their overall war effort can afford. Similarly, if a defender holds a planet but reduces it to rubble in the process, they may also lose even when conventional wisdom would suggest that they 'won' the battle.

Once a winner is selected, the amount of points they have obtained will determine their degree of victory. This degree is typically used to measure the performance of the various participants. Major victories are huge successes that well exceed what would be expected of normal combat personnel, while minor victories reflect good performance with several critical areas that should be improved. In rare circumstances neither side is able to obtain a significant advantage in points, so the battle is declared a draw.

PODS campaigns have a dedicated following of military enthusiasts, and amateur analyses of the various battles are extremely popular among Turians and Humans. Nicknamed "Poddies" or "Pod People", PODS supporters have a mixed reputation. A non-fiction book called _War Games _was released in 2177 that suggested the simulation actually deepens national conflicts rather than giving a safe outlet for them, listing the many xenophobic comments found on several PODS civilian discussion forums as part of its proof. Despite this and other harsh critiques of these individuals, Armax Arsenal hosts several conventions catering to PODS supporters each year, and Turian General Corinthus faced severe extranet backlash in 2180 when he dismissed them as "nothing more than hyperactive arm-chair strategists with too much time on their hands."

While after-action reports for each simulation are freely available on the extranet (less any information that is currently classified by the participants), brief summaries of the most recent exercises may be found below.

**2181**

**Location**: Taetrus (Turian)  
**Attackers**: Tarkasian Empire  
**Defenders**: Turian Hierarchy  
**Result**: Defender Minor Victory

The invasion of Taetrus began when a Tarkasian strikeforce of cloaked Hunter/Killer carriers penetrated the Turian sensor perimeter and launched their battlecruisers from behind Taetrus' moon. This allowed the Tarkasian forces to largely eliminate the Turian range advantage very early in the engagement.

As the battlecruisers attacked, the rest of the Tarkasian fleet arrived and began moving toward Taetrus at high speed. Though the defenders were able to swiftly isolate the battlecruisers and focus their heavier elements on the approaching invasion fleet, the distraction proved enough to allow the Tarkasian ships to enter missile range.

The Turian ships had assumed point defense formations in anticipation of the Tarka attempting to use Blast Storm and corrosive missiles to force their artillery vessels out of position. This proved to be a mistake, as the Tarka instead utilizes large numbers of smaller antimatter missiles and swarms of drones in suicide waves to increase the pressure on the Turian GARDIAN lasers. Careful positioning of vessels equipped with deflector fields minimized the damage the Turian fleet was able to inflict in the interim, and the Tarkasian force was able to enter close range without suffering too many casualties.

Rather than be forced into a knife fight with the Tarkasian ships while their GARDIANs were partially overheated, the Turian elements instead chose to break formation and cede control of Taetrus' orbit to the invaders. While the defenders regrouped, the Tarka made a risky gamble and deployed all of their ground forces simultaneously rather than wait until beachheads could be secured.

This risk paid off, in large part due to the superiority of the Tarkasian _Felix_ grav-fighters over their Turian counterpart, the _Sarpix_. Designed as a multirole craft, the older _Sarpix_ were heavier and slower than _Felix_, but had better armor. In contrast, the _Felix_ was built for air-superiority, with a high top-speed and powerful guns. This gave the _Felix_ a significant advantage in dogfights, while its maneuverability allowed it to evade many Turian air-to-air missiles. Most _Sarpix_ squadrons were crippled or wiped out completely in the first few weeks of the campaign, giving the Tarka almost complete air superiority for most of the invasion.

The Tarka landed in their forces in the Wildlands that dominated much of Taetrus' equatorial region. While a civil war in 2159 had caused many of the planet's cities to be heavily fortified, the marshy Wildlands were almost completely undefended. With the invaders holding the skys, the Turians were forced to deploy their forces along the ground. Taetrus' swamps bogged down many of the Turian heavy tanks, giving the Tarka even more time to prepare.

Once the landings were confirmed as successful, the Tarkasian fleet abandoned Taetrus' orbit and scattered into several smaller strikeforces throughout the system. When the Turian fleet attempted to secure the planet, they discovered that the Tarka had scattered antimatter and jump mines throughout its Lagrange points. Unable to effectively provide orbital support without clearing the mines and unable to remove the mines without leaving themselves vulnerable to the Tarkasian fleet, the Turians also abandoned the planet and attempted to hunt down the scattered invaders. Both forces would skirmish on and off for the duration of the campaign, but Taetrus' orbit would remain contested for the rest of the simulation.

On the ground, the Tarka had fully deployed their forces and immediately moved to cut off the Turian armies from the planet's fortress cities. The Tarkasian hover vehicles excelled at navigating the watery terrain and their superior speed allowed them to quickly outmaneuver the slower defenders. By the second month of the campaign, almost half of the Turian forces on the planet had been cut off from their respective points of origin.

Sensing opportunity, the invaders made a series of lightning strikes to secure Taetrus' major cities. While their initial penetrations were successful, the Tarka swiftly found themselves bogged down in miserable street fighting with Turian militia units. The superior maneuverability of the Tarkan tanks was useless in city fighting, and extensive fortifications and traps set up by the defenders inflicted heavy casualties.

While the majority of the Tarkasian divisional commanders were focused on being the first to obtain the glory of seizing an enemy city, the encircled Turian units began to counterattack. Using their new Jiris hovertanks to overcome the limits of the marshy terrain, they struck laterally, linking up with other cut off legions and slowly isolating the Tarkan forces sieging their cities.

When the campaign finally drew to a close at the end of the third month, it was obvious that the Tarka's misstep had cost them the invasion. The majority of their best units had been ground to pieces against the stalwart Turian fortifications, and those that remained were now hopelessly cut off. While they had inflicted serious casualties and managed to seize much of the planet's major infrastructure, with no orbital reinforcements coming the objectives they had been able to capture would inevitably be retaken by the advancing Turians. A minor victory was awarded to the defenders.

**2182**

**Location**: Cyone (Asari)  
**Attackers**: SolForce, Turian Hierarchy  
**Defenders**: Asari Republics, Tarkasian Empire  
**Result**: Attacker Minor Victory

The Turian fleet opened the campaign by deploying en masse and making straight for Cyone. Meanwhile, several SolForce carriers arrived through the system's node point and moved into a stable obit on the far side of Katebolo, the system's outermost planet. As the Turians continued to approach, the rest of the Human fleet arrived and assumed escort positions around the larger Hierarchy ships.

Many of the Human vessels were equipped for close battle, an obvious counter to the energy-heavy armaments of the defenders. Meanwhile, the Turians had focused on dreadnoughts and heavy cruisers, supplying the long-range firepower that the SolForce fleet lacked. To thwart this, the Tarka dispatched several heavy missile cruisers to flank the approaching formation and harass the Human ships with Blast Beam missiles. Aware of the danger presented by SolForce's own missile armaments, several Asari destroyers armed with X-Ray lasers were assigned as escorts. This would prove to be a fatal mistake.

With the defenders' point defense grid weakened by the loss of several escorts, the Human carriers launched waves of Node Fighters to attack. Using their micronode drives to instantly move between Katebolo and Cyone's orbits, they immediately began causing havoc. Using antimatter torpedoes, the Node Fighters began making hit-and-run strikes, firing their payloads and retreating back into nodespace before interceptors could be vectored to engage them. Facing the possibility of near-infinite harassment, the defending fleets were forced to abandon Cyone.

As the main Turian and SolForce fleets moved to pursue, their transports took up position over the planet and began a brief campaign of bombardment to knock out any air defenses or strongpoints. The defenders had expected this and largely dispersed their forces. Casualties were limited, and much of their air power remained intact.

After twenty-four hours of orbital strikes, the first in a series of probes began in an attempt to draw out any remaining air defenses. As any probe could in fact be an attempt to establish a beachhead, the defenders were forced to respond. Tarkan and Asari interceptors and AA platforms were met by SolForce _Valkyrie_ air superiority grav-fighters and Turian _Sarpix_ fighters utilizing Wild Weasel configurations. Losses were heavy on both sides, as the defending fighters enjoyed technical superiority, but the attackers had a distinct advantage in numbers.

While battles raged in Cyone's skies, the four fleets finally had their climactic confrontation. Two Asari destroyer groups attempted a Flash-Step maneuver to bring them into range of the exposed Turian and Human transports, but were intercepted when several squadrons of Node Fighters jumped in to provide support. Seeing that the carriers were now vulnerable, two Asari cruiser squadrons Flash-Stepped near Katebolo to destroy them.

The carriers, smaller cruiser-class ships, proved more dangerous than anticipated and successfully managed to hold out long enough for backup to arrive. The Asari squadrons called for their own reinforcements, and the skirmish quickly escalated into a massive brawl. When the debris cleared, the SolForce fleet had lost two thirds of its ships, and the Turian force had lost almost half of its strength. The Tarkasian fleet was completely destroyed, and the Asari lost three fourths of their compliment. The invaders had fully secured Cyone's space theatre.

Now able to fully leverage their naval firepower, the attackers commenced their primary invasion. Utilizing small assault shuttles, SolForce strike teams covertly secured several dozen beachheads under the guise of continued anti-air probing. With these teams providing ground support, the Turians dispatched several heavy transports to begin landing their main force. Exhausted by days of constant skirmishes and now facing anti-air fire from the ground, the defending air forces didn't even attempt to contest the landings.

As Turian and SolForce armor began deploying, the invasion progressed rapidly. Human assault teams would deploy from orbit to capture critical objectives ahead of the main advance, while the Turian legions brought up the rear and secured what their allies had taken. This cooperation proved essential to the continuing campaign, as Tarkasian Ranger teams and Asari commandos were a constant thorn in the invaders' sides. Even the methodical Turian advance was unable to completely curb them, and without orbital supply drops the invasion might have ground to a halt.

The alliance was not without its friction. A famously controversial incident centered around the SolForce Raiders, a newly-created unit designed to operate behind enemy lines with minimal supervision. When securing an antimatter generator, they were engaged by a squad from the Serrice Guard. The Asari put up enough resistance to convince the Raiders they were engaging a full platoon of commandoes. The Humans requested orbital support, destroying the valuable generator and causing forty civilian casualties in the simulated antimatter detonation. Even with this, the Guard squad suffered only two casualties from the battle and successfully managed to exfiltrate in the confusion. Following this debacle, the Turians requested that the Raiders be recalled for the duration of the campaign to prevent any further collateral damage from their poor judgement. SolForce complied.

Despite almost constant resistance from dispersed Asari and Tarkasian elements, the outcome of the campaign was almost inevitable. Surgical strikes from orbital laser batteries destroyed any strongpoints the defenders could assemble, and once the Turians secured an objective they could not be budged. SolForce assault shuttles and jump-capable Brawlers could be vectored in minutes to support any area that was about to be overwhelmed. This lethal combination turned the final two months of the invasion into a bloody but ultimately futile guerilla war.

The attacking forces finished the campaign in complete control of Cyone's major settlements and infrastructure. Much of this infrastructure had been destroyed by Asari and Tarkasian sabotage, with very few of the planet's critical antimatter generators surviving. The Turian and SolForce forces suffered heavy casualties, with many elite squads completely wiped out by the constant raids and ambushes. Because of the degree of damage done to the planet and their extensive casualties, the invading force was only awarded a minor victory.

**2183**

**Location**: Capella (Human)  
**Attackers**: Salarian Union, Tarkasian Empire  
**Defenders**: Hiver Imperium, SolForce  
**Result**: Attacker Major Victory

The Capella campaign remains the shortest in over a decade. Cloaked Salarian carriers opened the battle by covertly deploying hundreds of electronic warfare drones into the system. As the defenders attempted to sort through the massive amount of jamming and false contacts created by the drones, Salarian cruisers with improved cloaks and complex ordinance launchers moved into position around their defensive perimeter. By the time their presence had been detected, they had already begun dropping 'Cracker' and 'CryBaby' ordinance around the enemy parameter. The Cracker rounds released clouds of the Union's new cloaking antimatter mines, holding the Human and Hiver fleets in place while the main invasion force moved in.

Using the minefields as a screen, the attackers began a campaign of long-range bombardment with torpedoes, missiles, and spinal accelerator cannons. Though the Human and Hiver ships attempted to respond with their own guided ordinance, these weapons fell prey to the Wild Weasel signals emitted by the Salarian Crybabies. Very few ever made it to their intended targets. With their scanning vessels being systematically destroyed by the Salarian spinal guns, the defenders were forced to risk a reckless dash through the minefields or face complete destruction at range.

The effort proved futile. Though a combined wedge of Human and Hiver point-defense vessels was able to clear much of the mines, this left the rest of their fleet exposed. Volleys of pulsar torpedoes from the invading force disabled many of the vessels assigned to support the escorts. Now vulnerable, the point-defense ships were quickly annihilated by Tarkasian battleriders armed with antimatter cannons. Without their main source of point defense, the defending fleet chose to abandoned the system rather than lose the rest of their force to torpedo and missile barrages.

Capella's orbit now secure, the attackers began making preparations for their invasion. The conflicting effects of repeated Human and Tarkan terraformation attempts shrouded much of the planet in almost constant electrical storms during its wet season, a fact the defenders were counting on to protect them from the worst of the orbital bombardment. To counter this, STG and Ranger teams were deployed in the Union's new _Viper_ stealth shuttles. Equipped with adaptive thermal camouflage and vectored gravity thrusters, they were able to use the storms to land completely unnoticed by the defenders.

Over the next week, these teams sought out supply depots, command posts, airfields, and other critical facilities. To prevent suspicion, several attempts were made during this period to insert recon drones below the cloud line using Tarkasian fighters as escorts. These missions were quickly repulsed by Human interceptors and Hiver AA batteries, but they succeeded in keeping the defenders occupied while the recon teams completed their missions.

Once the weaknesses in the enemy defense had been identified, the Ranger and STG teams used targeting lasers cut through the interference of the storms and call down a series of devastating orbital strikes. These attacks coincided with dozens of landing attempts and a huge aerial surge designed to seize control of the skies. Though much of the Human command structure survived the strikes, the Hiver's primary Strategist was killed when an X-Ray laser strike wiped out his command post. This caused huge disruptions in the Hiver defense and prevented them from effectively coordinating with their allies.

The orbital strikes destroyed many of the defending aircraft on the ground, so most of the Tarkasian and Salarian landings were uncontested. Attempts by ground forces to respond were delayed as the infiltration teams began a campaign of rapid sabotage. Roads were mined, fuel depots destroyed, tunnels collapsed, and rations poisoned. Autonomous listening posts dropped from orbit began intercepting the defender's communications, allowing the attacking fleets to easily locate and destroy enemy formations with saturation bombardment.

The chaos fit perfectly with the standard Tarkasian battleplan, and the swift Tarkan vehicles were ruthless in hunting down the reeling defenders before they could coordinate or regroup. Within a single month their landing, the invaders had secured the entirety of Capella. Much of its infrastructure was captured intact, with Ranger and STG teams striking with lightning precision to seize objectives before they could be destroyed.

The defenders took massive casualties and were able to offer little in the way of active resistance. They also failed to inflict serious damage to the Tarkasian or Salarian fleets. Though the attackers were forced to expend a great deal in expensive ordinance to secure their victory, the decisive way they did so earned them a major victory.

**2184**

**Location**: Azkep (Hiver)  
**Attackers**: Turian Hierarchy, Vol Protectorate, Elcor Courts of Dekuuna, Salarian Union  
**Defenders**: Hiver Imperium, SolForce, Asari Republics  
**Result**: Defender Minor Victory

Recalling the role Salarian ECM and stealth technology played their defeat the previous year, both the Hiver and SolForce fleets allocated a portion of their allotted defense budgets to deploy additional system satellites throughout the system. This measure proved unnecessary, as the Salarian Union made the controversial choice to trade their usual assortment of stealth vessels for projector-equipped siege designs.

The invading fleet deployed in a single huge wave, making a decisive strike to seize the planet. Due to the limits of Orion ballistic technologies and the Asari's fondness for skirmisher vessels, the attackers assumed that the enemy would attempt to engage them in close battle and planned accordingly. While the Turian ships occupied the core of the formation, Salarian ships protected their flanks with their more powerful energy weapons. The heavy Elcor cruisers were assigned to support the more fragile Salarians, and the Volus bombers were arrayed in the middle of the combined fleet, ready to pounce once the enemy was too heavily engaged to respond effectively.

The assumption that the defenders would immediately attempt to close would prove a costly one. Learning from its previous mistakes, the Human fleet made its first combat deployment a new design: the Siege Platform. A variation on the Council's tradition of spinal guns, Siege vessels were first introduced in 2182 and measure 840m long, almost as long as a Turian dreadnought. Though they lack the range and accuracy enjoyed by Council spinal guns, their rounds are considerably more massive, capable of destroying cruisers in a single hit and inflicting serious damage to larger ships.

The artillery duel between the two sides was brief but violent. SolForce's Seige Platform, _Durendal_, was able to destroy the Turian flagship _Immortalis _and disable the main gun of her sister ship _Vigil_ before she was destroyed by focused fire from the enemy. The Asari and Hivers focused their efforts on the Salarian ships, using kinetic missiles and spinal cannons to soften them up so they could safely close the distance, while the Elcor and Turians attempted to knock out as many point-defense and interceptor ships as possible so the defenders would vulnerable when the Volus attacked.

With their largest gun now out of action, the defenders chose to yield Azkep to the invading fleet rather than be drawn into a prolonged slugging match where the Turian and Elcor ships would hold an advantage. They regrouped on the outskirts of the system, but disaster struck before a counter-attack could be launched.

SolForce's new super-dreadnought, the _Leviathan_, vanished from its dock in the Agros Naval Yards, inflicting heavy damage. In response, SolForce declared a state of emergency and recalled all of their ships, including those participating in the Azkep war game. Their ground forces were permitted to remain only until enough transports could be rerouted to collect them. With a third of the defending fleet removed and less than a month before the terrestrial defenses were similarly depleted, the moderators agreed to adjust the conditions of the simulation.

The attackers were awarded an orbital victory by forfeit, but now had only until the SolForce transports arrived to fully secure the planet. No longer permitted the luxury of a methodical invasion, they elected to attempt an all-or-nothing assault. Volus heavy bombers, escorted by Turian and Salarian fighters, descended in huge waves to attempt surgical strikes against strongpoints while larger fortifications were subjected to extensive orbital bombardment. While this progressed, dozens of heavy Elcor transports began making landings as strike teams used stealth shuttles to deploy behind enemy lines.

The Turian and Volus bombardment inflicted serious damage to the planet's surface defenses, but the rocky terrain of Azkep provided considerably better support for the Hiver's underground fortifications than the soft soil of Capella had. Most of the planet's military infrastructure remained intact. So when the landings began, the transports were met by Human and Asari fighters launched from subterranean airbases. Anti-air silos built into the sides of mountains and hidden under tons of rock also caused serious problems, requiring precision strikes from neutronium bunker-busters to finally silence.

Once on the ground, things continued to go poorly for the invaders. Though their strike teams were formidable, consisting of elite STG operatives, Volus Biotic Protectors, and Ghosts from the Turian 26nd Armiger Legion, they proved unable to inflict serious damage. The Asari ground forces had already spread themselves out across the planet, using their clairvoyance to sense the arrival of enemy teams and stall them. Once the enemy was engaged, SolForce assault transports would be rerouted to the area carrying reinforcements. Even in cases when the Huntresses were overwhelmed, Human strike teams were on the ground in minutes to retake the objective.

The main landings also encountered stiff resistance. The Asari and Hiver forces took advantage of the invaders' inability to control the skies by deploying large numbers of ground-attack aircraft such as the Republics' A-61g _Mantis_ and the Imperium's _Hagmoth_ erzortari. The heavy battlesuits of the Elcor made excellent targets in the open terrain of Azkep's plains, and elaborate cat-and-mouse battles between Elcor AA teams and Hiver gunships were common. While Turian and Elcor fireteams began a bloody, grinding advance from the landing zones, Volus engineers began setting up pre-fabricated breastworks, bunkers, and other defenses to secure what they had claimed. This foothold allowed the invaders to finally unload their heavy tanks and several of the Protectorate's famous _Locil _artillery platforms. Bolstered by the addition of armored units and several well-placed close orbital strikes, the invaders began making real headway for the first time.

As the main enemy force moved further from their landing sites, the defenders sprung their trap. Burrowing Hiver _Erza_ tanks cut tunnels deep under the enemy lines, emerging at their landing zones to unleash havoc. Hiver IFVs containing Asari huntresses and large Warrior forms followed, sparking a vicious melee in the invaders' rear. This sneak-attack coincided with a massive push by SolForce, with several battalions of Jiguang and Hannibal hovertanks emerging from hiding to support sudden blitz attacks by air cavalry groups.

Under pressure from both sides and unable to provide orbital support without hitting their own forces, the invading armies crumbled. Within forty-eight hours of the first Hiver breakthroughs, a group decision by the commanders of the invading force pronounced all of the landing sites irretrievably compromised and called for a full withdrawal.

In a final attempt to salvage something of the disaster, the remaining Turian legions voluntarily declined evacuation to keep the enemy forces out in the open. Several Elcor and Volus companies also elected to remain. Once their other troops were evacuated, the Turian fleet began a limited purge of Azkep, unloading on all known enemy positions with the maximum amount of ordinance the planet's biosphere allowed.

This lethal barrage was followed by a prolonged bombing campaign, with Salarian seismic sensors pinpointing tunnel complexes for the bombers to target. With the extent of the Hiver fortifications now apparent, the Volus bombers began using low-yield warp bombs to soften the bedrock before dropping their main ordinance. This tactic proved extremely effective, collapsing several major installations. The remaining defense aircraft and AA positions opposed these assaults at first, but quickly learned that responding only highlighted their bases for orbital strikes and future bombing runs. Eventually the defenders were forced to resort to blending with civilian populations or scattering to smaller tunnels that would be more difficult to detect. Despite several days of constant bombing, the invaders were unable to do enough damage to justify a second landing attempt. They conceded defeat, ending the campaign a week early.

The damage done by the attacker's orbital bombardment and bombing runs was extensive, destroying almost all of Azkep's infrastructure. While civilian casualties were limited, the ecological damage to the planet was extreme. Combined with their massive casualties and complete failure to seize any objective, this penalty was enough to ensure that victory was awarded to the defenders. Their losses and the massive damage done to Azkep prevented this from being anything but a minor victory for them.


End file.
